#no but seriously asfkj if u noticed how i did that!! thatd be neat

[vaindumbass]

a series of full moons

((written for @rosemaldrge, happy birthday Em!! I hope you like this hurt/comfort. warnings for mention of blood and wounds)) 

~~~

“I don’t want you there.” Remus says, and his voice sounds foreign to his own ears, the way it has for almost thirteen years now. 

Sirius recoils, and Remus can see anger settling deep into his bones, no matter how much Sirius tries to keep it in (they always knew each other too well). “Why not?” 

“The wolf doesn’t know you anymore” I don't know you anymore, Remus wants to say, but he worries that will break them to the point of no return. “He needs time to adjust.” Again, Remus is talking about himself. He has taken Sirius in, yes, but that means he has almost no time alone, and he’s almost glad that he’ll have a few minutes to himself, even if those minutes will only be filled with the promise of pain.

Sirius snaps, a little. “Fuck you.” He says, his voice more ragged than it used to be. “Fuck you and your- the ways you subtly destroy yourself. I can help.” 

Remus feels a bit cold, almost detached, looking at the emotions on Sirius’ face. “I’ll be fine. I’ve been going through them alone for thirteen years now.” 

Sirius’ jaw moves in the tell-tale way that lets Remus know he’s gritting his teeth, but he doesn’t say anything. Remus nods, and walks out of the room. 

The basement Remus uses to transform in is cold, and dark, and so, so silent. For a moment, he rests his back against the wall, his head hanging down, and suddenly he misses his old friends so much that it aches. He closes his eyes.

~~~

“Moony!” James had said, hazel eyes big and bright from where he sat next to Remus’ hospital bed. “You’re awake.” 

Remus had blinked back at him, and then he had blinked at the sandwiches that were held out in front of him. James grinned at him. “Pomfrey said you’d need food to recover.΅ 

Tentatively, Remus had reached out and taken a small bite. Remus felt as if he had never eaten before, as if his mouth processed tastes and textures for the very first time. He remembered reading somewhere that cooking was something only humans did, and in that moment, he felt really, truly human. In short, it was delicious. James’ grin became wider when Remus told him so. 

“Peter and Sirius are getting some sort of ointment from Pomfrey that’s supposed to help,” James had said, in response to Remus’ unspoken question.

Closely after that, Peter and Sirius had come back, and as soon as Sirius had reached Remus’ bed he’d taken the one of Remus’ arms that had the biggest wound, and started putting the ointment on it carefully, making sure not to hurt Remus. It felt like a caress.

James had chuckled. “Don’t you think that Remus can do that himself?” 

Sirius had immediately stopped, smiling sheepishly up at Remus, the lightest of red on his cheeks. “I don’t mind.” is what Remus had said, shrugging, his heart beating in his ears.

With a small smile, Sirius had continued. James and Peter came to sit on the bed next to him, and Peter had handed him a bit of chocolate. Sitting there with his friends, Remus had felt truly happy, no matter what he’d gone through only a few hours before.

~~~

The floor of Remus’ basement is still cold the next morning, as he finds out when he lies there, naked, with a bleeding leg. That doesn’t stop him from slumbering there for a few moments, trying to slowly come back into his body, to absentmindedly flex his fingers and his toes.

He stops, abruptly, when the door swings open. Sirius is standing in the doorway, a plate in his hands, and he starts walking towards Remus, starts kneeling down next to him--

Remus stands up and smacks the plate right out of his hands. It’s accidental, or, well, from the right angle it looks accidental, with Remus being slightly wobbly and unsure on his feet, but Remus doesn’t regret what happened in the slightest.

“You don’t get to-,” he blurts out, and his feelings are too big, too complicated to fit into something as banal as words, but actions aren’t helping either, the satisfaction from the broken plate is long gone (was it even there in the first place?), “You’re not-” 

His sentences get stuck in his throat because he’s awful at this, at talking about- talking about-

There is plain, open hurt on Sirius’ face, and Remus wonders if he somehow lost his emotionless mask in Azkaban.  “Okay,” Sirius says, “I’ll- Okay.” He walks away with slumped shoulders, but his steps are quick, and Remus wants him to come back and he wants to never see him again.

And then Sirius is gone and Remus is alone again and he can’t look away from the shards of the broken plate, from the sandwiches strewn between them, from how even now they’ve fallen apart, it’s visible that the slices of bread were cut the exact same way James always used to. 

~~~

They ignore what happened. Remus feels awful about lashing out, about showing something of a monstrous nature, and Remus hates talking about his feelings, however awful they may be. Sirius seems to accept that, and doesn’t move when, the next full moon, Remus walks down to the basement.

Remus wakes up warm, comfortable. He immediately knows something is wrong. When he finally manages to wretch his eyes open, he sees he’s curled up around a black, soft shape.

He doesn’t even need to blink again to recognize that it’s Sirius in his animagus form. The muscles of his stomach clench almost involuntarily, as if they’re trying to keep his anger down. He stands up, and he isn’t shaking, he isn’t even bleeding. It only serves to make him more furious, however irrational that might be.

“I know you’re awake, Sirius.” 

A grey eye opens slowly, and looks at him. Remus looks back, stubbornly, until he’s looking at a man instead of a dog.

“I told you not to come.” Remus says, and it echoes a bit, in this room that is so used to being empty.

“I promised I’d take care of you.” 

That hurts, and it hurts even more because it’s aimed at that place in himself that he has tried so hard to protect, to build walls around, to forget about. 

“No,” he responds, his voice on the edge of cracking, “we promised we’d take care of each other. You, James, and-” his voice falls over the edge, “-and Peter.” 

The gray of Sirius’ eyes looks a bit like steel. “And you. You promised too.” 

“Look how well that turned out.” 

Sirius stands up straighter, and Remus observes how he seems almost thirteen years younger, all the wrinkles that Remus wasn’t there to see the origin of disappearing, anger taking its place. “I’m trying, Remus, but you’re not even taking care of yourself, you don’t even fucking have wolfsbane!” 

“Wolfsbane isn’t exactly cheap, in case you haven’t noticed.” 

“You could have asked me.” 

“You could have not gotten thrown into Azkaban.” It’s a cheap shot, and Remus is very, very aware of that, but finally he’s getting a memory that is so sharp and broken that it fits exactly against his splintered edges. He’d forgotten how good it felt to fight with Sirius.

Sirius rises to the bait like Remus knew he would, hackles raised. “You could have gotten me out of Azkaban, but no, why would you ever go after anything you want? Anything that could make your life better?” 

Remus doesn’t even deny that Sirius could possibly make his life better, the lump in his throat is too big for that. He works around it carefully, making deep cuts with the precision of a surgeon. “You should have tried to take care of me thirteen years ago. It’s too late now.” 

Sirius sets a step closer, and finally does Remus see the furious glint in his eyes. It fills him with anticipation, because while he’s hurting Sirius, the only thing that’s keeping him standing is that Sirius is hurting him back. He feels alive, horrifically so. 

“You could have gotten Harry.” Sirius says, and there’s a pause, in which Remus realizes he wasn’t prepared at all, this wouldn’t even vaguely be like old times, because Remus had made so much more mistakes since then. “You could have gotten him out of there. He lived in a cupboard for eleven fucking years. You could have prevented that.” 

“I-” Remus starts, “I put a protection charm on him, after- after the tournament. It’ll keep him safe from everything, dementors, other wizards-- I’ll keep him safe.” 

Sirius laughs, but it’s far from the laugh that Remus used for his patronus before- before it all. It’s the one that plagues Remus’ nightmares, the one that sounds as if it scrapes itself out of Sirius’ throat with the sharpest claws, the one that feels as if it scratches over Remus’ heart, cutting ever so slightly through the surface. “That’s not enough. You know that’s not enough.” 

Sirius sounds an awful amount like the voice in the back of his head, and Remus deals with him the same way he does with the voice. “Leave.” he says, or maybe he yells it at the top of his lungs. He’s not sure. He does know, however, that Sirius leaves, casually stomping on what’s left of Remus’ heart as he goes.

Of course that’s the moment other memories start to flood him. Did fighting with Sirius always leave him this drained, this tired, this sad? Yes, his memories tell him, but this time you managed to fuck it up even more than you used to.

He wonders how they used to make up after fights. Because of Peter, his memories whisper in his ear, biting down on every piece of him they could reach, he was always the one to get you guys to talk to each other again, but he’s not here anymore, is he? 

~~~

They stop talking for about a month. It’s not the easiest thing, what with living in the same house and all, but Remus only ever politely asks for the salt, and Sirius will hand it to him, and then they’ll go their separate ways. Sirius isn’t supposed to get out of the house, but it’s a muggle town, and Sirius would go crazy otherwise, so Remus doesn’t say anything.

He also doesn’t say anything when Sirius buys groceries, and he’s silent when Sirius tells Dumbledore that he, once again, refuses to go to grimmauld place, and he doesn’t protest when he finds new books in his bookcase. Remus knows that Sirius knows that means something, but he only speaks right before the full moon. 

“You could stay,” Remus says. He has thought about this extensively, but only now realises that Sirius may not want to. “If you’d like.” 

Sirius stays.

And it cracks Remus’ heart right open. He wants to ask Sirius, right then and there, if he’d maybe also like to try and be together again, to wake up next to each other again, to take care of each other again. But it’s too much, too soon, so for now he just offers Sirius his hand when they walk down the stairs that lead to the basement, and smiles when Sirius takes it.

~~~

Remus wakes up free of pain, once again cuddled up to Sirius. He stretches, and gives Sirius a tentative smile, that is returned, lips stretching slowly.

Remus kisses him. It’s accidental, more impulsive than Remus can ever remember being, but he doesn’t think it could be avoided, and Sirius doesn’t seem to mind. 

Remus doesn’t mind the cold floor as long as he can put his right hand in Sirius’ hair, as long as Sirius’ left hand is on his waist, as long as their other hands are holding each other.

It’s soft, and sweet, and everything they haven’t allowed themselves to be for years. Sirius pulls back a little, only to gently kiss the scar that crosses Remus’ lips, a scar that Sirius wasn’t there to see the origin of. Remus grips his hand tighter.

Sirius’ hand moves a little, and Remus hisses through his teeth. “What is it?” Sirius says, worried, hastily breaking their kiss.

“Just a bruise.” Remus presses his lips one last, lingering time to Sirius’ jaw, then makes to stand up. “Pomfrey gave me something for it, it’s upstairs.” 

Their hands are still entangled when they walk up the stairs again. Remus catches Sirius looking down at them, and then smiling broadly before looking up. Remus is sure his face shows the same giddy excitement. 

Sirius lets go just before they reach the living room, and quickly ducks into the bathroom before Remus can, returning with a jar of ointment. “Let me?”, he asks, grey eyes open and vulnerable.

Remus nods, and quickly takes off his shirt, avoiding looking down on his bare and bony chest. He’s thankful that Sirius’ eyes linger only a moment on the newer scars, and then Sirius’ hands are on him, a shock of cold that somehow manages to make Remus feel warm inside.

Somehow, it feels even more intimate than the kiss they shared in the basement. It’s hard to look at Sirius, but Remus can’t resist, and he doesn’t regret it in the slightest, not when Sirius seems so focused on patching him up, his long hair falling over the side of his face. 

Remus reaches out and tucks it behind Sirius’ ear in what he knows is an incredibly cliché move, but Sirius has always made him do silly things. It gets Sirius’ to focus his heavy gaze on him, though, so it’s not all bad.

“Would you sleep in my room?”, he asks, and it’s not the best way to start this conversation, but as Sirius laughs he figures that it isn’t the worst way either.

“How bold. Yes, I’d like that.” Sirius smiles softly at him, in a way that could fuel a hundred more patronuses, and Remus’ poor heart skips a beat.

He scrapes his throat. “Good. Then Harry could take your old room. Do you think he’d like it?” 

Sirius laughs again, a bit more wetly this time, and says: “I’m sure he’d love it. I’d love it.” 

Remus closes his eyes, and leans his forehead against Sirius’. “Me too.”

They sit that way for several peaceful heartbeats, and it’s the most at home Remus has ever felt in this place. 

Then, he opens his eyes. “I think it’s time we send Harry a letter. I heard they’ve got Umbridge as teacher, and that boy will need all the support he can get when he’s forced to interact with that bigoted bootlicker.” 

Sirius laughs, as delighted as he always is, was, and used to be whenever Remus cursed around him. “Let’s do it.”, he says, and Remus knows he’s not just talking about the letter-writing, but also about everything it implies, about the bed-sharing, about being together again, about taking care of each other, and Harry, too.

Remus smiles at him. “Let’s.”  

#asjdslf would u believe i meant to post this about 8 hours ago #whoops #whyyyy do i always go all out on the hurt/comfort #remus lupin #sirius black #i havent written lie low at lupin's before so this was fun to explore #wolfstar #wolfstar fanfiction #was that whole conversation abt Umbridge based on the one (1) time Sirius says 'u should hear the way Remus talks abt her'? ....maybe #remusxsirius #marauders #there are now at least three full moons in the lie low at Lupins period i stretched canon as if it was an elastic #no but seriously asfkj if u noticed how i did that!! thatd be neat #mywriting