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You're staring at your own hand again, trying to decide if it belongs to you.
It rests on your lap like a still life—strange, detached, not entirely real. The fingers look like they should move if you think hard enough, but there's a delay, like the signal from your brain has to travel through fog. You flex them, or try to. They twitch, barely. Your skin is a colour you don't recognise. A texture you can't place. Not soft. Not cold. Not even neutral. Just there. A thing. An object, not a limb. There's a disconnect between vision and sensation, a dissonance that echoes through your limbs. It feels as though you're watching someone else breathe through your chest.
Everything feels like it's happening through a pane of glass. Not clean glass, either—frosted, fractured in places, smeared with condensation that never clears. You're not behind it, exactly. You're in it. Trapped between the layers. The world is out there, just a hair's breadth away, unreachable.
The room itself has a warped sense of gravity. You aren't sure if you can trust the furniture to stay where it is. The floor doesn't feel solid beneath you. It should. It used to. But now it might give way at any moment. You wouldn't fall. You'd float. Drift. Fade.
The world around you is hazy. Not blurry, not exactly. Just... off. Tilted. Like everything has been nudged a few inches to the left and no one bothered to put it back. As if the angles have been bent slightly, warped like old glass. The air hums with something low and throbbing, like distant static from a television left on in another room. Light filters in through the window in slats that don't look like light. They look like shadows pretending to be sun. Colours have been drained of their purpose, like the soul has been leeched out of them. Sound is muffled, dulled at the edges, as though your ears are wrapped in cotton wool. The whole room has the quiet wrongness of a dream you're half-aware you're dreaming. Familiar things rendered unfamiliar. Safe things turned strange. Even the plants in the corner feel performative, like stage props painted green.
You blink.
The motion is slow, syrupy, like you're submerged in deep water. There is pressure behind your eyes, not pain but presence. The sense that something is watching you from inside your own skull. Like you're trapped behind your face. You curl your fingers, slowly, experimentally. The movement is foreign. Puppet-like.
That's mine, you think. That's my hand.
But is it?
You can remember it being yours, maybe. You remember doing things with it—brushing your teeth, holding a cup, touching someone's cheek. You think it was warm, once. It doesn't feel warm now. It doesn't feel at all. It rests on you like a borrowed thing, like something you forgot to give back.
You breathe in. You think you do. Your chest rises. But there is no connection, no sense of ownership over the motion. It's mechanical, automatic. Not yours. The air smells like dust and something herbal, something faint and stale and unplaceable. It could be Remus's tea from this morning. It could be something from a week ago. You don't know how long it's been since you came in here. You don't know if you ever left.
There are no clocks in this room, but you feel time dragging like a heavy coat soaked through. Moments pass in glacial shudders. You're not sure how long you've been here, sitting in this chair with your strange hand on your lap, watching yourself be a person. Minutes. Hours. It could be days. It could be a dream within a memory, folding in on itself like crumpled paper.
You try to follow the lines of the bookshelf across the room. The titles blur. The spines don't seem quite vertical. You shift your gaze, and the floor tilts with it. Reality creaks. One of the books you don't recognise. But you must have bought it. Or Remus did. Or it's always been there. That thought circles itself endlessly, chasing its tail.
When the door creaks open, the sound is distant, unimportant. Like something happening on a screen.
Then: "Y/N?"
It takes a second to realise that's your name. Or a name, at least. It takes another to remember who says it like that. Not sharp, not urgent, but soft, like moss between paving stones. A name with history. Yours? Maybe.
Your whole body jolts—not a jump, not a flinch, but something internal, a shuddering quake beneath the surface of your skin. Your eyes drag toward the sound. Slowly. As if your gaze has weight.
Remus stands in the doorway, one hand on the frame, the other still halfway to his coat pocket. His brow is furrowed, mouth parted slightly, like he's already said something else and is waiting to repeat it. His jumper is the green one, the soft one you remember pulling from the wash with your hands that might have been yours then. There's a smudge of ink on the side of his wrist. That ink has lived there for hours, maybe days. It always does.
Behind him, the corridor stretches like something out of a memory. The hallway light buzzes faintly, another layer of noise in your already overfilled brain. Or underfilled. It's hard to tell which. There are shapes behind him, indistinct—coat rack, boots, shadows. Your memory tries to catalogue them, match them to images from before. It fails.
You blink again, slower this time.
Underwater.
He says your name again. And this time it sounds more like a question than a greeting.
The syllables feel unfamiliar in your ears, distorted like a voice passed through static. Each one slices through the heavy silence like a blade through mist. You don't respond. You couldn't if you tried. You're not sure if your mouth belongs to you either. If your tongue would even move. If words would make it across the gulf between thought and sound.
You open your mouth. Nothing happens. Not even air. You close it again. That was something. Maybe.
The world tilts. Just slightly. A slow pitch sideways, like gravity forgot its instructions. You grip the arm of the chair. Not to steady yourself—you don't feel unsteady. You don't feel at all. But it seems like the right thing to do. Your fingers tighten. You feel the shape of the wood, but not the sensation. You see your knuckles go pale, but it doesn't mean anything.
He doesn't panic. Doesn't rush toward you, doesn't fill the space with noise or worry or questions. He just moves, slow and deliberate, like he's stepping into a sacred place. Like he understands that something fragile is happening, something delicate and invisible and terrifying. Like his presence could shatter it if he moves too quickly, if he breathes too loudly. His awareness is sharp, honed by experience and something softer, deeper. A kind of knowing that doesn't need to be explained.
He kneels in front of you.
Not dramatically, not even loudly. Just folds down onto the floor with quiet ease, as though it's the most natural thing in the world. His knees settle onto the rug in front of your chair, hands resting gently on his thighs as he looks up at you. Not pushing. Not pulling. Just there. Solid. Real. Steady as the earth. He waits, eyes on you but not piercing. He doesn't demand your gaze, doesn't chase your attention. He offers it instead—unspoken presence like a lighthouse beam sweeping over dark waters.
Then, without asking, he reaches.
His hand takes yours—the one you weren't sure belonged to you. His fingers wrap around it with steady, deliberate pressure, grounding it. Grounding you. His thumb brushes over your knuckles, slow and rhythmic. You don't feel the temperature of his skin, not really, but the pressure anchors. The movement gives shape to the moment. Gives form to your hand that had only seconds ago been a vague, uncertain thing attached to your body. The gesture is quiet, but it echoes through the fog like bells underwater.
"You're here," he murmurs, voice low and even. Like he doesn't want to wake anything too suddenly. "With me. Right now."
The words pierce the fog like a needle through silk. You stare at him. Or through him. Your eyes focus and unfocus in turns, struggling to stay in one place. But his voice traces a thread between where you are and where he is, and you cling to it even if you don't quite understand how. It's not a demand. It's not even a request. It's an offering, and something about it helps you stay.
"Can you hear me?" he asks, his thumb still moving in those slow, certain arcs. He doesn't sound afraid. Only present.
You nod. Maybe. A breath of movement. Almost imperceptible, but enough. The kind of nod a person gives when they're more ghost than flesh. You don't feel your neck move, but you see his eyes soften when you do.
"Do you want me to count with you?"
You nod again. A bit more this time. It still doesn't feel like your body moving, but at least you can see it move. It responds to him, not you. The gesture doesn't feel like it came from you, but from the space between you.
He shifts a little closer, still holding your hand in both of his now. His voice lowers further, as if drawing the world in around just the two of you. Making it smaller. Safer. The room seems to fold inwards, softening around your breath.
"Alright," he says gently. "We'll start with just one of each. One thing you can see. One thing you can feel. One thing you can hear. Ready?"
You don't answer. But your eyes meet his, and that seems to be enough. He doesn't push. He simply begins.
"One thing you see," he begins, soft and patient.
You look at him. Really look. He's right there, green jumper and ink-smudged wrist and soft, steady eyes. Eyes that don't look afraid, even though you feel terrifying to yourself right now. His knees are bent slightly awkwardly on the floor. You notice it because it's real. Tangible. A detail that tethers you. There's a tiny fray in the cuff of his sleeve. You want to focus on it but your eyes keep drifting back to his face.
"You," you say, voice hoarse and unfamiliar. It sounds like someone else speaking from far away. Not your voice. Just a voice.
He nods. The corners of his mouth twitch into something that almost resembles a smile, but not quite. It's too soft for that. Too reverent.
"Good," he says gently. "That's really good. One thing you feel?"
You pause. It takes longer. You can see your hand. It still doesn't feel real. But his hand is wrapped around it. There's weight. Pressure. Texture. You feel the drag of his thumb over bone. You try to stay there, in that sensation, before it slips through your fingers again. You press your fingertips into his, testing the contact.
"Your hand," you say. It comes out like a question. Fragile. Tentative. As if the answer might change everything.
"Yes," he agrees immediately. "Mine. Holding yours. Still here."
Your breath stutters, barely noticeable. But it moves something inside you. The static thins, just for a second. Enough to let his voice echo through. Enough to make you wonder if maybe you're not completely gone.
"And now," he says, with a gentleness that feels like a whisper on your skin, "one thing you can hear."
You listen. It's harder than it should be. The static is loud. The hum of the light overhead. The faint creak of the house settling. But beneath that, steady and real, is his breathing. Slow. Deep. Measured like he wants you to match it. It fills the silence like a balm, a rhythm you can follow. You try to match it. It takes a few false starts.
"You," you whisper. "Breathing."
"Mhm," he says, his voice almost breaking on the sound. "That's it. Just like that. You're doing so well."
You squeeze his hand. Only a little. It takes effort, feels like lifting stone. But you do it. A single gesture that feels like the beginning of a return. A small rebellion against the weightlessness.
His lips part like he might say something else, but instead he just shifts his grip, holding your hand like it matters more than anything else in the world. And maybe right now, it does. Maybe it's the only thing that does. That single point of contact between a version of you that's lost and a version of you that's still here.
He glances down at your joined hands, then back to you, gaze searching, but not invasive. His thumb keeps moving. Not quite a pattern. Just a presence.
"Do you want to do another round?" he asks softly.
You nod.
"Alright. One thing you see?"
You blink slowly. Your gaze shifts from his face to the floor beneath him. A tiny tuft of rug fibre sticking out of place. A detail. Real. Present. You stare at it for a long moment.
"The carpet," you murmur.
"Good. One thing you feel?"
You move your thumb the tiniest bit over the side of his finger. The skin there is rough from quills and books and stress. A texture you could almost name. A place you've touched before. Familiar.
"You," you say again. Simpler this time.
"Still me," he says softly. "Still here. One thing you hear?"
You listen again. His breathing. The house. The whisper of your own heartbeat, maybe. Something faint and rhythmic inside your ears.
"Us," you say.
And this time, his smile finds its way to his mouth. It doesn't rise high. It doesn't need to. It just rests there like a promise.
"Us," he repeats.
When the fog finally begins to lift, it doesn't vanish all at once. It recedes in layers, peeling back from the edges of your vision, slow and cautious like mist retreating from morning light. It doesn't flee. It lingers, stubborn in the corners of the room and in the creases of your breath, clinging to your ribs like smoke. Like a presence you can't quite shake, even when you want to. But something in you stirs. Something shifts—subtle but seismic. You don't know what it is. You just know it means move. And not away, but toward. Toward the only thing in the room that feels real.
And you reach for him.
Your hand moves of its own accord, like muscle memory guiding you across the void. Not out of instinct, but longing. A quiet plea. An unspoken question you don't have the words for. Your fingers lift, curl, hesitate in the space between you—and Remus catches them instantly, like he'd been waiting for the signal. Like he knew it would come. He doesn't startle, doesn't shift in surprise. He just takes your hand like it's the most natural thing in the world, like the air between you was always meant to close.
He rises, not quickly but with purpose, a smooth, grounded motion. He doesn't startle you. He doesn't rush. He simply moves forward as if he's known forever that this moment would come. Until you're surrounded by his presence, until the world folds again, but this time around him. Around you. Around this — the here, the now, the fragile relief blooming in the space where your body used to echo. It doesn't all come back at once. But something arrives. The room has edges again. The shape of your form begins to fill in.
He wraps his arms around you as though holding something fragile and holy. He doesn't grip tightly, doesn't smother. He just holds, like your presence is enough. Like you are enough. Like this moment matters more than understanding it. His hands settle over your back with measured care, as though mapping your presence gently, respectfully. You feel his breath against your hair, steady and sure. The warmth of his chest pressed to yours, his jumper scratchy-soft where it meets your cheek. You count the seams in the knit, the faint scent of old paper and black tea lingering on the fibres. Every contact point reverberates, anchoring you molecule by molecule. It is not loud. It is not dramatic. But it is true.
For a long time, neither of you speaks. The silence is not empty. It is full—of breath, of presence, of wordless knowing. The air between you hums with quiet understanding. You nestle closer into him, not because it solves anything but because he's real. You can't trust your own body yet, but you can trust his. You can trust the shape of his arms around you. You press your forehead into the warm hollow between his collarbone and shoulder and let your breath sync with his. Not perfectly. But close enough.
Your voice finds you like a ghost.
"It doesn't feel like I'm in my body."
The confession slips out before you even register that you're speaking. It sounds quieter than you expect, a breath more than a statement. It feels foreign even as you say it. As though someone else spoke through your throat, borrowed your breath to say the thing you weren't sure you were allowed to voice. It hovers in the space between you, uncertain and soft, and you brace for the echo of discomfort. The weight of misunderstanding. But it doesn't come.
Remus doesn't flinch. Doesn't pull away. Doesn't fill the quiet with fear or pity.
Instead, he presses a kiss to the side of your face — not hurried, not loud. Just there. Solid. Certain. His lips linger a second longer than necessary, as if marking a boundary around you. Claiming this moment. Making it real. His hand moves up to cradle the back of your head, palm wide and steady against your hair.
"Then I'll keep holding you," he murmurs, his voice so close it hums against your skin, a low warmth in the hollow between your jaw and shoulder, "until you remember it's yours."
Your throat tightens. Not in panic. Not in pain. In something else. A stretch. A bloom. The start of something tender and terrifying. You swallow, but there's no need to respond. He doesn't need words. He never does. He just holds you tighter — only slightly — as though reinforcing the perimeter of your body with his own. Not trapping you. Just drawing the outline. Just reminding you where your edges begin.
Something unravels. Not violently. Gently. A thread pulled loose from the tangle you've been wrapped in. A loosening. The kind of softness that comes after hours of held breath. It doesn't restore you completely. It doesn't need to. It just makes room. Room for a breath. A thought. A return.
You close your eyes. The world doesn't vanish, but it recedes to a safer distance. It doesn't press against your skin quite so hard. And that, right now, feels like grace. Like mercy. Like something human and quiet that doesn't need explanation. Just presence.
He keeps holding you.
His hand finds the back of your neck, cradling it gently. His thumb moves in slow, almost-thoughtless circles against your hairline. The motion reminds you of earlier. Of him tracing circles over your knuckles. Of his voice, guiding you back with patience instead of panic. You think about how carefully he exists in your space, never once asking more than you can give. Never once assuming what you need. Only offering. Only being.
And maybe, just maybe, that's enough for now.