Chapter Text
Sirius curled up in the furthest corner of his bed, trying to ignore his discomfort and the ghastly smell. He just had to wait a few hours, then it would be over. He could be the first one out of bed, pop into the shower and get dressed and no one would notice a thing. The house elves would change the sheets during lessons, and everything would be in perfect order by the time anyone set foot back in the dormitory.
Normally, he wouldn’t just sit in his own mess like this. He’d sneak to the bathroom and get himself clean and then find a dry spot where he could try to get back to sleep. But he knew Remus struggled to sleep deeply in the days preceding the full moon. It was getting close now, and Remus needed his sleep. Sirius wouldn’t risk disturbing him.
He shut his eyes and tried to breathe through the fabric of his t-shirt. He tried to relax. He tried to force himself back to sleep.
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work. He felt gross, and it smelled, and everything was wet and sticky, and… and, fuck, he was too old for this. He was seventeen now. He was an adult. He should be able to wake up when he needed the loo, but he still kept wetting himself like a baby.
At least he was at Hogwarts this time. The last time he had woken to a soaked mattress had been at the Potters’, and it had been utterly mortifying. He had lain in place, the realisation slowly dawning that he would have to fix this himself if he wanted to avoid anyone finding out. Next, he had realised that he had no idea where the family kept their linen and that he would not be able to put things to rights on his own. He’d had to wake James, and James had seen his awful mess and cleaned it up for him. Sirius didn’t think he’d ever been that ashamed, and James hadn’t even acted angry or disgusted; he’d just told him it was okay, as if Sirius would believe that. Still, it was better for James to be secretly disgusted than for his parents to see and… Sirius wasn’t sure what they would have done, and he desperately hoped that he never found out.
They were kind. They were so kind, just like James was; but even their patience and tolerance could only stretch so far. He’d already been far more trouble than he was worth, and soiling their sheets was exactly the sort of thing that would make them decide they’d had enough of him.
But this time he was at school, so no one had to find out. He felt so fucking awful, he was struggling to resist the urge to transform. He had become accustomed to turning into Padfoot whenever he was feeling any sort of negative emotion by himself. It made everything easier. His thoughts couldn’t get so complicated and tangled up when he was a dog. His emotions were simpler. If he tried that now, the smell would make him lose his mind. He’d probably make a noise and wake Remus, so he had to endure this as a human.
Just a few hours.
If he could just turn his brain off and fall asleep, it would be over soon.
But he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t stop thinking.
He was thinking about more than just how filthy he felt and how shameful it all was. He’d been dreaming before, and he kept seeing the images and reliving the emotions.
He’d dreamed about being back in that house. That part he couldn’t remember much of, but it was probably what had made him wet himself. He could only recall being there and thinking how he’d never really escape. Fear. Despair.
But before that – he thought it was before – he’d been dreaming about Remus.
He’d been dreaming about Remus.
It had happened a few months ago. Remus had been sitting next to Lily in the common room, and he’d turned to look at something and Sirius had seen the side of his face and the way his jumper had stretched over his shoulder, and…
And now Sirius couldn’t stop thinking about Remus’s face.
His eyes.
His nose and lips and hair.
He’d never really thought about any of it before, but now it was always there.
Remus’s brown eyes with their fine lashes, and the bushy eyebrows above them. Those eyes had a delicate pattern Sirius had first noticed years ago, wavy lines streaming from the pupils.
Remus’s nose, with the crooked bridge. And his hair, the way it fell across his forehead when he worked, the way he tugged his fingers through it when he got frustrated. Sirius had felt it before. It was coarser than his own.
And his lips. Sirius couldn’t stop thinking how he’d like to feel them. They looked soft. Lovely, pink and soft, and Sirius hated himself.
He couldn’t have thoughts like this. He couldn’t think about Remus the way he was. He couldn’t.
He’d been dreaming about Remus’s hands. He hadn’t even noticed them that evening, when he’d first realised.
Remus had beautiful hands. He fiddled with the cuticles too much. They were narrow and the fingers were long. He kept his nails short, and the beds were much pinker than the skin of the fingers around them. Sirius sometimes let his nails grow too long, but Remus took good care of his. His hands were beautiful, and Sirius had seen them in his dreams.
He bit into his arm as hard as he could. Well, until it started to hurt too much and he stopped, because he was a bloody coward. Maybe if he actually made it hurt, he’d stop having these thoughts.
He couldn’t think about Remus this way. He couldn’t. It was… It was… If anyone ever found out… If Remus ever found out…
He made a terrible, high-pitched choking sound and pressed a hand over his mouth to make himself shut up before he woke the whole dormitory. He breathed through his nose and tried to hate himself more quietly.
“Sirius?” came a whispered voice. He stopped breathing, hoping whoever it was would believe he was asleep and go back to bed themselves.
There was a quiet sigh from beyond his hangings and his curtain was pulled aside.
Remus.
Fuck. He’d only gone and woken Remus.
“What are you doing?” Remus asked, sounding quite perplexed. “Come on; get away from there.”
Sirius considered whether he could just stay resolutely where he was until Remus gave up and left him alone.
“Sirius!” Remus hissed. “Come here!” He leaned forward, as though he was planning on reaching over the filthy bed to grab Sirius. He was also getting less quiet with each utterance, and Sirius had to concede that staying put wasn’t a realistic option. If he didn’t relent and get out of bed (though he wasn’t sure why Remus was set on achieving that), he’d just end up waking everyone and causing even more commotion.
He clambered over to Remus reluctantly.
“Come on,” Remus whispered, steering him towards the bathroom.
Once they were inside, Sirius pressed his eyes shut, partially because the light was too bright, but mostly because he couldn’t bear to see Remus’s expression after finding him in such an embarrassing position. He kept his arms folded across his torso, since the spot he’d bitten was throbbing dully and he thought there might be a visible mark. At least he could stop Remus from seeing that.
Remus didn’t say anything, and Sirius just stood there, visualising his reaction to realising one of his friends still pissed himself for absolutely no reason.
He opened his eyes when he heard the sound of water running. Remus wasn’t looking at him at all. He was leaning into the shower, probably fiddling with the taps.
After a minute, he stepped aside, eyes fixed on the tile floor rather than Sirius. “Go on. It’s warm,” he said quietly.
Bemused, Sirius tried to tell Remus off for treating him like a child, even if he had been behaving like one. “Moony, you don’t… I can…” He huffed in frustration.
“Shower. We’ll talk after,” Remus said bluntly.
He supposed he couldn’t deny that he needed a wash. “How about I shower, you go back to bed, and we never talk about this again?” he suggested.
Remus chuckled, like some part of this could be considered amusing. “Yeah, sure,” he said.
Sirius wasn’t sure what to make of that. He had to get clean. That was the first thing, before he worried about anything else.
He stepped under the stream of water, the temperature almost perfect, and scrubbed himself quickly. He had left a mark on his arm. He’d bitten through the skin, and it was oozing blood now, just a little. He pressed at the wound for a few seconds and hoped that would be enough to make it stop. As he reached for the taps to turn the water off, he prayed Remus had listened to him and gone to bed, so he wouldn’t have to be seen in just a towel.
Taking a deep breath, he peeked out and saw fresh clothes waiting on a stool.
“I hope those are all right,” he heard Remus saying from just out of view. “Didn’t want to turn all the lights on, you know?”
“No, they’re perfect. Thanks,” said Sirius, grabbing the clothes and dressing hurriedly. They were a pair of his pyjama bottoms and an old t-shirt, which was exactly what he normally slept in. He folded his right arm across his abdomen, so that stupid wound wouldn’t be visible, and stepped out to where Remus was waiting patiently.
“Feeling better?” Remus asked.
Sirius nodded, still absolutely mortified to have been found the way he had been, especially by Remus.
“Why didn’t you go wash on your own?” Remus’s voice wasn’t judgemental, just curious.
“Didn’t want to wake you,” Sirius mumbled.
“You don’t normally worry about that,” said Remus.
Sirius stared at him. He didn’t mean… Remus’s eyes widened as he seemed to realise what he’d just said, confirming to Sirius that he had, in fact, been aware of these incidents before tonight.
“No, I didn’t – Shit!”
Sirius chuckled, because Remus did not swear often.
“Sorry,” Remus said lamely.
Sirius wanted to say it was okay, but Remus having known all this time was such an unwelcome thought. “So… you’ve noticed before…?”
“I could smell it,” Remus said apologetically. “And I never said anything, because I didn’t want to embarrass you. But you just stayed there this time. Why didn’t you get up?”
Sirius started chewing on his lip. “Because the full moon’s in two days and I know you have trouble sleeping this time of the month, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
Remus made a disbelieving sound. “So, what was your plan? Just sit there miserably until morning?”
Sirius shrugged and Remus sighed, stepping closer so he could grasp Sirius’s shoulders.
“Sirius.” He sounded stern, and Sirius didn’t like it one bit. Sure, he deserved to be scolded, but that didn’t make it easier to bear. “You can’t do that. You can’t be that self-sacrificing; that’s ridiculous.”
That wasn’t exactly what he’d expected to be scolded for. “But you need to get enough sleep,” he tried explaining.
“Oh, and you don’t? It’s fine for you to be up all night?” His voice sounded softer now. He was scolding Sirius, yes, but it was because he cared about him. If anything, that only served to make him feel more ashamed. “You’re my friend, Sirius. You don’t have to…” He sighed. “Come on, let’s go to bed.”
Sirius nodded, not exactly eager to return to his own bed, but it would only be for a few hours.
“What are you doing?” Remus whispered when Sirius headed in that direction.
Confused, Sirius told him, “I’m going to bed.”
“You can’t sleep there!” Remus hissed at him. “It’s all wet and… Come, you can sleep next to me.”
Sirius felt a pang of panic, because he simply could not sleep next to Remus, but he also could not get into a lengthy discussion in the dormitory where James and Peter were still sleeping. “No, it’s… it’s fine,” he tried.
“Don’t be silly. You sleep next to James all the time.”
That was so completely different, but he couldn’t explain why without leaving Remus utterly horrified, but if he refused without explaining, it would seem like he just preferred James. Oh, Merlin.
“Come on, Sirius. I promise I won’t do anything weird.” Of that Sirius had no doubt. Remus wasn’t the one at risk of behaving inappropriately.
Incapable of coming up with a plausible reason not to share with Remus (and really not fancying the prospect of his own bed), he followed Remus and gingerly got under the blanket beside him, appreciating that Remus shuffled over so they could lie with some space between them.
Staring up at the dark canopy above them, Sirius thought the odds of him falling asleep were quite low. He was happy to be dry and clean and, unlike Remus, he couldn’t smell anything from this distance (not while he was in human form, anyway); but at the same time, he couldn’t stop thinking about how Remus was lying right next to him.
“Sleep well, Padfoot,” Remus whispered.
“Right. Yeah. You, too.” Merlin, what was wrong with him? Could he not even respond to sleep well without ballsing it up? “I mean… Thank you for, erm… Well, erm… Goodnight, Moony.”
He heard a soft sound, like a suppressed laugh, maybe. “Mm. Goodnight, Sirius.”