remus & sirius ✯ goodbye.

Muscles tight like wound springs caused him to pull his hunched shoulders back, the doorknob hard and cold beneath his aching fingers. He felt as though his body needed support, his mind swirling and overwhelmed. His teeth felt as though they were creating sawdust, grinding slowly back and forth in the confines of his mouth.

He couldn’t handle this moment, he couldn’t handle this feeling of rejection.

Not after the night he’d had, not after watching death knock on his door and slowly decide to drift by, leaving wisps of what could have been to curl around his throat and choke him.

He didn’t understand why Remus was being so harsh, the cover of the night making it hard to see his features, to read his expression. The energy that cascaded off of him in waves was clear though.

GO AWAY.

He needed nothing more than that to make his choice and he would have done so silently if not for Remus’s strange plead that grated him the wrong way.

“I’m not toying with you, I don’t know where you’re getting that from. I just wanted to lie with you because I could really use it right about now. To be able to curl up with you and fall asleep. You clearly don’t want that, so I’m going,” Sirius muttered in annoyance, upset creeping into his voice despite himself. “I don’t need this right now.”

      ✯ He purposely evaded the entire ordeal.

        It was with a mixture of anger and agony that Remus’s honey-flecked, green-eyes, barely visible in the light of a sinking moon that he gazed upon his violent lover. Lips sneered and he nearly scowled as acrimony trembled through brittle bones.

       “You don’t know where I’m getting that from?” Remus repeated, voice hollow and monotone. Eerie hands clasped his own kneecaps and Remus shook his head in utter disbelief. Why he was surprised existed beyond his comprehension. “Lie with me or to me, Sirius?”

        It was exacerbating how ridiculous Sirius Black was; but it should be no surprise. He had always been this way. Always been foolish, self-centered, egotistical. He had always been vicious, heartless, cruel. Remus realized he couldn’t even be mad at him. It was himself he was mad with.

        “You need help.”

         His tone was distant and bitter with the hint of a plea.

         Sirius, get some fucking help before you do this again. To someone else.

         Remus’s forehead fell to the hands resting on his knees and he closed his eyes.

         The fight within was gone.

remus & sirius ✯ goodbye.

Words attacked him like knives and he didn’t understand the pure venom that dripped off each syllable, sinking into his flesh, causing a cold curl inside of his gut. Death was imminent, his heart like stone as it sank to the bottom of his stomach, making him want to be ill.

“I didn’t try because I already know I can’t,” Sirius responded, words quick and jumbled as they raced past his lips, trying to explain, trying to reach out to Remus without moving. His feet were glued, body tense, feeling unwelcome and alone. He didn’t understand. What did Remus know that upset him so?

There were so many things he’d done wrong. So many things his mind screamed out in possibility, his knuckles aching as he clenched his fists by his side to ground himself.

His body felt aflame with emotions, crawling through his nerves like ants racing towards their next treat, devouring him, consuming his strength of will. He felt sore and mentally unstable, the teetering dichotomy making him want to snap, to shout, scream, beg for any kind of comfort that Remus could supply.

He couldn’t, he couldn’t, he couldn’t.

He wouldn’t drag this out, wouldn’t force Remus into giving him what he needed when it was clear he couldn’t be bothered with him.

Maybe he was tired.

His mind supplied excuses, reasoning for his boyfriend’s cold tone, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he had done something wrong.

Remus had a point, he’d been through the wringer, he should be able to sleep, but he wanted to sleep next to the man he loved.

Stepping backwards, a breath expelled from his lungs, his hand sliding to the door to steady himself.

“I’ll go.”

    ✯ Filthy, vein-lined, bony feet the color of a florescent moon because the moon was a part of him now lifted slowly from a dusty wooden floor and pressed into his springy mattress. His back tipped against the wall, bottom rolling at an angle to alleviate pain. He inhaled a long breath and flinched, his head thumping against solid plaster as green eyes squeezed shut.

       An irritated scoff scratched his throat and his nose scrunched up, but he remained silent. Wicked ideas undoubtedly swirled through Sirius’s perverted mind and Remus was too weak to put up a fight. Anticipation, however, slowly dripped her anxiety-provoking poison through constricted veins and Remus just wanted to get it over with. A thundering heartbeat exploded in his chest cavity and it was more than a little difficult to breathe.

       I’ll go.

       A sliver of green peered beyond thick lashes and Remus gazed skeptically towards his violent lover. Did he speak truths? Did he merely present himself to torment Remus? To make him believe it was coming only to walk away last minute? Was he trying to invoke fear in the lycanthrope, to make him believe that it could happen at any time and he should never, ever relax?

      “Don’t toy with me.” This time Remus’s tone was low and scratchy, weak and pleading. He could deal with a second round of brutality, but the anticipation would be the death of him.

remus & sirius ✯ goodbye.

Harsh sounding words snapped in the space between, cracking off walls, ricocheting into the darkness.

Did he know? Had he heard? Or did he merely realized he lied to him to go complete a mission that wound up in utter desolation?

He didn’t know, didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to see the anger in Remus’s eyes as he realized that it was his fault they had gone in unprepared. How many times could he ask forgiveness for his actions? How many times could he race in head first without thinking? It was amazing, really, how not even being aware of his fatal flaw hadn’t managed to convince him to change.

It was a part of him, deep down, in the very fiber of his bones.

He would never learn.

Their two bodies stood parallel, unyielding and unforgiving, before Remus tipped back, the tap of his step signifying space.

He wanted space.

His own feet refused to move, refused to relent, to flee as his mind and heart begged them to. There would be no solace here, no calm voice urging him that what happened wasn’t his doing, that he’d tried his best.

Because he hadn’t, had he?

He had gotten them kidnapped; Lily and him should both be dead. They should have been the ones with their eyes staring up to the heavens, the ones to feel their bones crack and their life leave them. Why they were left to live, he wasn’t sure, but his instinct and lessons growing up had taught him one thing: living with pain was more torturous and damaging than being given relief.

“Remus,” Sirius croaked out, his throat on fire, his heartbeat pressing fast against his own fingertips. Thoughts lay crowded in his mind, tied in knots, making it impossible to express what he truly needed. “I can’t sleep.”

     ✯ Remus.

       A longing croak; a voice that once turned him on now left him with unpleasant goosebumps and chills jumping up and down his spine, a churning unsettling his stomach. An involuntary flinch distorted his scarred face. A wrinkled nose, lips pursed, eyes twitching and his gaze captured his feet with a sickness landing in his gut like lead.

       This was wrong!

       Sirius, standing in his company as though nothing vulgar transpired but moments prior.

      “You didn’t even try.”

      Automatic, like a 22 caliber, and vicious as hell, he could not stop himself from responding quickly, lips curling into an agitated sneer. Was Remus supposed to pity him?

       “I’d imagine it’d be easy for you to sleep tonight.” You had quite a workout, didn’t you?

      Remus tried to swallow but couldn’t. His throat, too constricted from screaming, from a swell of emotions, would not open enough to allow saliva to slip through his tight esophagus. The sensation caused a panic to erupt and his breathing suffered. Already weak and agonized, his body lowered to his bed, careful and agitated as he held in a gruesome yelp from the contact against torn-up flesh.

      He didn’t fucking care anymore. Sirius could do as he pleased with him. It wasn’t like he could hurt him anymore than he already had.

remus & sirius ✯ goodbye.

The doorknob twisted beneath his hand, grating into sensitive flesh, the rope burn still aching despite the meager healing charms Lily and him had cast upon one another. His heart ached in his throat as the door creaked open, each thump echoing inside the cluttered walls of his brain, rattling around stacked thoughts, causing them to jam and jar. 

Darkness greeted him, a sliver of hazy moonlight bringing the silhouette of Remus’s body into focus.

The muscles in his throat contracted unexpectedly, a squeak of air escaping it’s trapped fate. Words lingered on his tongue, plump and round, ready for the picking, their juices exploding in the confines of his mouth, sour and overwhelming, choking him with the weight each one carried. Anything he could say would break the moment, anything he could manage to croak out would bring devastation and unrest. It felt like a losing battle. How could they believe they could save anyone, when they couldn’t even help themselves?

He adjusted his weight, the floorboards creaking eerily in the silence, his body urging him forward towards a secure embrace.

But he stayed stock still in the doorway.

Comfort felt wrong in that moment, for he was not the one who had lost the living. He had been the one who had failed to protect; he had no right to mourn when the dead family left behind was loss due to his own foolishness. If he had been smarter, wiser  — stronger, this would not have happened. He would not see shadows when he looked into the face of Lily, would not hear the still silence that encapsulated them and highlighted their inadequacy.

He’d stupidly thought they had been prepared.

He knew now just how wrong he was.

His gaze swung along the outline of Remus’s body, unable to see detail other than his eyes, which had caught flecks of moonlight.

“You’re up,” Sirius spoke hollowly, his words as loud as thunder in the empty, quiet space. “I thought you’d be asleep.”

     ✯ “Of course I’m up.” Frost formed on the tip of his tongue around the hard, exaggerated p; his tone so cold ice crystals clung to each, bitter word. The patient, forgiving werewolf turned to blackened smoke, pummeling towards a dawn-light sky.

       He was no more. 

      I don’t know what you expected.

     Sirius deserved no additional reply, an explanation of the pain plaguing him delivered at the hands of his fucking grace standing before him. How, how, how could he be expected to slumber after the night he’d endured? Was Sirius so deluded in his self-obsessed world that he believed Remus was that forgiving? That he might forget in just a few hours time? 

      Just fucking do it.

      He should have left when he’d had the chance, but wobbly knees prohibited movement. Blood-soaked sheets carefully discarded proved disapparation would be fatal should he attempt. But maybe that was a better alternative to this; standing here, with him, body hunched and breathing strangled like an abused puppy shivering in the cold, waiting for his terrible owner to return the beatings.

      No. Remus would not succumb to that life.

      But it would be so easy...

      NO!

      Vertigo-tainted vision and trembling legs betrayed his fear and Remus took a fearful step back. He couldn’t do this again. He’d die; possibly literally but certainly figuratively. He could not.

      He would not.

remus & sirius ✯ goodbye.

Silence stretched out before him, his breath ghosting against the wood of the door, a desperation to claw through the barrier sweeping his entire being. There was a yearning that filled him, yet he felt restless and unsettled; a sensation that felt as though it was vibrating down to his very core, to each fragile bone that held him together —

                                                               — SNAP.

How simple that infrastructure was to destroy. How easy it was to crush and twist in unnatural ways.

He could see it in his mind, his lungs squeezing as though clamped, each sharp breath more ragged than the last.

He couldn’t see Remus like this. He couldn’t worry him, couldn’t upset him. His heart felt like lead in his chest and he slid down to the ground, trying to capture the air which now seemed to evade him in his lungs.

There was nothing to steady him, nothing that he could hold on to as his eyes burned and his mind reeled.

He needed to be strong.

With a push, he lifted himself off the ground, using the doorknob as leverage, twisting it slowly to peer inside. One look at the man he loved, and he could sleep, knowing the world would right itself come morning.

One look.

One reminder that it was all worth it.

One moment to remember what they fought for.

That life would go on.

      ✯ They say love skews colors. Makes them brighter. Palpable to the touch. Soft hues like silken cushions and warms like a hand bursting through a ribcage to squeeze a damaged heart.

        In this moment, with fear and rage crawling along goose pimpled flesh, Remus felt colors like never before. Neon oranges skirted across the insides of his eyelids as though he peered at the sun with eyes shut beneath chlorinated water. Blazing tangerine clashed with salmon clashed with vermillion and all at once turned to snow. Clenched fingers dug crescent moons into a fleshy palm and Remus Lupin breathed again; slow and tangible, he exhaled a shaky sigh that lit up the night.

       A slow shuffling verbalized by flesh rising, a doorknob twisting, and Remus’s back involuntarily curled into a protective stance. Green, honey-flecked eyes darted daringly to the lock button, which he’d forgotten to press. STUPID! SO STUPID! Not that a measly lock could stop the unwanted intruder when magic existed; but it would show Sirius that he wanted no part of whatever he was returning to his side for.

       It was over.

      A sliver of outside light slowly spread across his midnight-blue bedroom and Remus cringed as Sirius’s now unfamiliar gaze met his own.

      It was belatedly that Remus recognized what he must look like to the other; a silhouette against the backdrop of a waning moon peering through thin, white curtains hand-picked by Hope Lupin just months before. He was standing, like the prisoner he was, trapped by four walls and the violent hand of a lover.

      He could not appear more vulnerable if he tried.

remus & sirius ✯ goodbye.

The world was painted black, blue, and red.

The image of hallowed and empty eyes staring — limp and torn limbs — burned against the backs of closed eyelids.

There was no escape, no rest.

There was no running or hiding.

No peace.

Screams echoed inside the cavern of his skull, taunting reminders of helpless failure.

There was no going back, no bringing back the dead who would forever pay for Lily and his missteps.

The weight that pressed heavy against his shoulders, collapsing his lungs, making each breath a rasping torture, sank like an anchor into his gut, causing it to spasm. Knees struck the dirt, cuffs rubbing against the raw skin of his wrists, palms scraping against the ground, the grass, as he got his bearings post apparition. His stomach lurched, acid burning the back of his throat, sheer determination tamping down on the desire to vomit.

Visions of ivory skin and a comforting embrace found Sirius rising to his feet, a need so visceral it was nearly tangible.

Busted knuckles ripped at the locks and tore their way past metal and wood to safety —

— to home.

The silence that greeted him felt unnatural, but the desire to be considerate pulsed through every vein, each beat of his heart reminding him that his internal ravaging was secondary to Remus’s comfort.

He felt lost, unable to process what steps to take next, the hour insisting he be asleep, his heart insisting he seek solace where he could still find it.

Feet carried him instinctively, a pause outside of Remus’s bedroom door, his fingers curled against the wood as the heel of his palm rested firm against the frame. A soft thump brought his forehead down as he struggled to to keep the tight feeling in his throat at bay.

There would be no words.

He couldn’t take his tranquility away.

        ✯ Careful heel-toe-heel-toe steps creaking against an old floorboard felt strangely unfamiliar for a man he’d known most of his life. There was once a time when one of his mates would enter in dead silence and Remus would simply know who it was without looking. He knew it was Sirius, but he no longer knew Sirius. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he never had.

          Sirius’s undeniable presence chilled his spine; a measly wooden door that couldn’t even keep heat trapped inside his only protection. Each ventricle of his heart went into overdrive, pumping five liters of blood through tight veins circling his appendages, his throat, the wrinkles in his brain.

         Jitters shivered through his entity, visibly causing a tremble through lanky arms, his tight muscles appearing undernourished after the beating he endured. The thud was a clap of thunder in the eerie silence and it aroused his senses from the tips of his fingers to the curling in his toes. 

       “Just do it, then,” Remus choked, voice strangled and muffled. He doubted Sirius would hear him, understand him, but he could no longer stand the anticipation.

This time he wouldn’t fight back.

Remus & Miriam || Scars From the Devil

As she managed to close up the last piece of torn flesh on his chest she backed away a bit, noting just how sick she felt.  She truly didn’t understand what the point of this was.  She struggled to see the purpose one might use to convince themselves that what they had done to Remus had been okay.  But she was coming up empty.  She often complained and felt bitter about the senseless violence of the war, but this was taking her disgust to new levels.  What kind of person was capable of this?

“Relax for a second,okay?  Let the pain die down a bit.”  

She perched on the stool by the bed, giving him some space to breathe.  His heart rate was too high, and judging by his voice, the pain was the cause of that.  “This next part– it’s just a spell.  Very simple in theory, but it’s going to hurt like hell, and I feel like I need to warn you before I do it.  The spell heals bruising from the deepest part and up through the surface.  So the best way that I can describe it is to imagine a knife being pulled out.  The pain is already there, but the movement will agitate it.  It’ll feel great once it’s gone– and then we can move to other things.  We’re getting there, Remus.  Hang in there.”

This was the worst part of her job.  She knew what she needed to do to help him, but she knew that it was going to get worse before it was better.  It was all necessary, but that didn’t stop to frustration she felt at causing more pain.  She was frustrated.  This whole war was so bloody frustrating.  What she wouldn’t give for a week where her biggest trauma was a messy splinching or an animal attack.

“The only other common room I saw was Ravenclaw, and we definitely had them beat.  It was too set up for studying; right depressing, it was.”  She snorted at his admittance to having been in all of the common rooms, trying to take the conversation back to a light place during his break.  “What did the Slytherin common room look like?  Heads of their enemies on sticks?”

She rolled her eyes at his comments about his blood status.  “This war is so frustrating.  How arbitrary, and rather pathetic, is it to dislike something for something that is completely beyond their control?  Blood status or anything else.  Judge people for who they are, not for the status of their blood or the way they spend their full moons.”

At the end of her comment she sighed and stood up.  She tossed a quick soundproofing charm on the door and stood over him once again.  “Let’s just get this over with, yes?  The quicker we get this done, the quicker we can get you a potion so that you can get some rest.”  She hated this damn spell, but she loved it for its usefulness.  She bit down on her lip and lightly jabbed her wand at the center of the bruising, muttering the incantation.

She balled up her fists as she kept a careful eye out for any medical complications.  She was the Healer, not the victim.  She had no right to any other kind of reaction.

@bloodmoon-rising

Grateful for the momentary reprieve, Remus relaxed against the table, his expression loosening up as he closed his eyes, hands splaying flat by his sides. It was agony. This whole process of being healed. It was torture. But Remus knew that if he didn’t take care of it, the full moon would only agitate it and worsen it in the end.

Miriam explained what he should expect for the next part of the process and he nodded, doing his best to keep his expression flat. He didn’t want her to think he was nervous. She was doing her best, remaining professional while healing him expertly, and Remus couldn’t begin to explain how much he appreciated her gentleness throughout the whole ordeal.

“Do what you gotta. I’m alright,” he promised. The pain he was enduring was more substantial that other things he had been subjected to in the past, but it wasn’t completely unbearable.

“Ravenclaw was nice,” he replied, shrugging. “Very light and airy. But yeah, not quite as cozy. Think Rowena didn’t want anyone slackin’ off and gettin’ too comfortable. Gotta remember they are known for wit’n all.”

Remus released a light laugh as she questioned him about Slytherin. “Not quite. S’interesting, actually. Very-- green. Colder than all the others since it’s beneath the lake’n all. But s’not nearly as terrible as I had originally imagined it. S’like an old basement with elegant furnishings.”

The war was frustrating; but it was so much more than that. Remus nodded, his eyes distant as she voiced her opinion on the matter. He didn’t really want to discuss politics with her, didn’t want to get into the horrid intricacies of a blood war. It was all that had been on his mind for the past few months. It was the reason he was here. He wished there were other things to think about, but it felt so fucking constant.

Remus watched as she put a silencing charm around the room and nodded, not sure he would ever be ready and knowing it was best to just get it over with as quickly as possible.

Her wand grazed his skin and Remus took a deep breath. Then, suddenly, agony through his entire midsection. His body spasmed and he released a loud groan, eyes closing, his head pressing into the table, teeth grit.

“Fuck!” he exclaimed as it quickly dulled, his green eyes slowly opening, his muscles still taut.