((Author's Note: Because this doesn't make any sense without the idea behind it, the basic premise is this: Sirius, extremely homophobic, has realized he is attracted to Remus as more than a friend. I'm not yet sure how he came to that conclusion (o_o No. Stop those thoughts) or whether I intend to continue this- it's simply a scene I wrote a while ago and decided to post here.))
***
Remus wasn't quite fully conscious until he had reached the bathroom and finished what he'd gone there to do; the deep, absolute sleep that overtook everyone at the hour of 4 AM was still clinging to his brain, fogging his thoughts and making him hurry back through the darkness to his bunk in hopes to return to it. There, however, he was stilled by a muffled sob from the bunk next to his, a startling and jarring note in the room full of restful breathing (or, if you happened to be one Peter Pettigrew, the kind of snoring that could only be reached when the snorer's face was buried securely in his pillow, preferably with open mouth).
"...Sirius?" Remus said quietly, tentatively. There was little fear of waking anyone else in the room, but the situation called for that soft, uncertain tone that comes just above a whisper.
"I'm... nightmare..." Sirius said, clearly straining stubbornly for a steady voice. He failed, and dissolved into sobs once more (these the kind that the sobber intentionally buries in a pillow, open mouth optional but usually involuntary).
The werewolf moved somewhat clumsily through the darkness, hands groping for a bedpost. He found it and latched on, sinking onto its respective bed, Sirius', with relief. Whatever people might say about his kind's night vision, Remus' was nearly nonexistent. "Do you want to talk about it?" he offered, unsure of what else to say.
"No!" The reply was immediate and nowhere near whispered, but the sleepers slept on, taking no notice. Peter was probably going to have a sore throat tomorrow.
"All right... um," Remus said, thinking hard. "That bad?" He reached blindly for his friend's shoulder, only finding an arm by mere coincidence.
Sirius flinched away, now using the pillow almost as a shield. "Don't- don't touch me!" he said shakily.
Remus withdrew his hand quickly, perplexed, and the two sat in silence for a moment until the pillow abruptly became a muffler once more. What on earth, he wondered, could make Sirius upset enough to shake the bed with sobbing? Or, for that matter, upset enough that one of his best friends couldn't touch him, let alone comfort him? The two were nearly brothers. They'd shared countless wrestling matches, countless hours lazing around and studying -those actions, of course, were each specific to only one of them, and related only by their simultaneity-, countless touches, from hugs of comfort or joy to punches, playful and angry. What could be wrong enough to remove that?