Remus walks slowly up the stairs to his flat. The muscles in his legs tighten painfully at the repeated motion, making him unconsciously grit his teeth. His navy scarf is pulled high around his neck, covering the evidence of a fresh wound. Remus can feel the odd stiffness of the straight, deep cut spanning the underside of his face from ear to chin. Dumbledore does not understand. It's difficult to hide a five-inch gash from someone accustomed to running his delicate fingers across your jaw line. It's difficult to hide parts of yourself from the person who is supposed to know everything.
Remus stands in the doorway. The door swings back on its hinges and hits the wall sharply. The action is more dramatic than he intended, and he winces slightly.
Sirius is on his feet with his wand out in seconds flat. There is no more of the pretended, boyish awkwardness of his Hogwarts years about him. He moves deftly with the fluid grace of his breeding and with the quickness born of constant, churning fear.
Instantly, Remus' hands are both up in a gesture of surrender. He is unarmed. These reflexes are mechanical now. Remus hesitates, looking awkward, unsure if he should move.
Sirius, in the way he has always been so good at, kicks down the wall forming between them. He reaches out for Remus, taking one hand and gripping it tightly in his own. Insanely relieved, Sirius attempts a wobbly grin. He could laugh or cry in this moment. Lately, he is never sure which is closest to the surface.
"Remus! You…" Sirius's face falls again, "You look terrible."
Remus gives a half smile. His wound pulls at the motion, and he feels like an imposter in his own home, in his own skin.
"Where have you been?" Sirius asks, sounding slightly off-footed in the wake of Remus's stiffness.
"A mission," Remus answers simply. What he wants to do is tell Sirius everything. What he wants to do is stumble forward and let Sirius take him in his arms. He wonders when, in all of the growing up that he has done and been forced to do in recent years, the painfully shy and guarded boy he was became the man he is now, so dependent on another person.
In his sleep, Sirius clings to Remus' back, fisting his t-shirt in a way that Remus is sure he would not have done if he had been awake. This knowledge causes an odd tightness somewhere around Remus' abdomen. He longs to turn over and bury his face in Sirius' chest but remains motionless.
Once upon a time, Sirius slept with reckless abandon, all gangly limbs and wild bed-head. Remus would wake up to find his legs hopelessly entangled, his arm pinned beneath Sirius' cheek, his chest encircled by arms. Now, there is always a careful distance, as though a No Man's Land has silently been arranged in the middle of their mattress.
As exhaustion claims Remus at last, he involuntarily relaxes into Sirius' chest.
Remus craves human contact. Remembering the last time Sirius held him, Remus feels a literal, yearning pain in his chest. He's had teeth on his throat since then and feared for his life. He's seen blood smeared across the smirking mouths of men, not wolves.
Whatever Remus is, he's sure that it is not this. He tells himself again and again, trying not to lose his mind. He's not like them. He can't be, or he wouldn't miss Sirius so much.
He will stay because he believes that the world is worth saving. But he will not be one of them, not inside his head.
When Remus finally falls into a fitful sleep, the shape of Fenrir Greyback haunts his dreams.
Days later, Sirius presses kisses to Remus's flesh as though trying to reclaim him. Gasping at the feeling of warm lips on his skin, Remus wants to be claimed. As Sirius' teeth graze his throat, however, Remus shudders involuntarily, remembering. Sirius pulls away, hurt, and Remus doesn't know how to fix it any more.
When Remus disappears, Sirius's belly churns with more than the fear of losing him. He remembers Remus shivering at his touch. He remembers the silence and the emptiness behind Remus's eyes, and worries that he was already lost. The thought feels like ice in his veins, and keeps Sirius staring at the ceiling until the sun comes up night after night.
With a loud crack, Remus reappears in the living room. He is flesh again, no longer a name on the list of the Missing. Three of his ribs are broken. Sirius, not close enough to catch him, watches helplessly as he falls to the floor, face first and gasping for air.
"Bloody fuck, Remus," Sirius begins, running to him, "What happened? Where have you been?"
Remus tries to form words but finds he cannot. He wheezes, then coughs, and suddenly his whole body is wracked. The shaking sends fiery pain through his chest, like breaking, like the moon again. Suddenly, there is blood on his hands, blood in his mouth. It tastes salty, and metallic, and nauseating.
"Shh," Sirius says, trying to hold Remus still, because he doesn't know what else to do.
Remus looks at him with pleading eyes, and he melts. Sirius becomes kind words and comfort. He becomes gentle reassurances and healing spells. Sirius lets himself forget, and it becomes third year again. When Remus cannot stand, Sirius supports him. When Remus cannot walk, Sirius carries his weight.
Only later, when Remus is asleep in the warm bedroom, his breathing almost regular, does Sirius think to tell James.
"He's back," Sirius says, his head floating in the fire of James's kitchen at Godric's Hollow. He can hear Lily shushing the baby in the next room.
James's hair is wild, standing up as though he has been running his fingers through it endlessly, as though it is screaming. Sirius takes stock of a flash of some unreadable emotion across his best friend's face. From behind rectangular glasses, hazel eyes seem to be searching through Sirius.
"There was a fight," he says finally, "They can't find Caradoc. There were three Death Eaters."
James seems to steel himself for a moment before saying, "One escaped with serious injuries."
He yanks Remus from the bed without saying anything. His eyes are on fire, and, for once, Remus is scared.
He reaches for Remus' left sleeve, all traces of gentleness gone. Violently ripping back the fabric, he finds the skin scarred but unmarked.
Sirius Black turns, disgusted, and leaves Remus lying on the ground where he has fallen. He slams the door the way he did as a petulant eleven year old, but now the sound lingers with finality in the silent room.
Remus sobs until his breath is gone.
Sirius does not come back. Remus makes tea in the flat by himself and jumps at small noises.
When he finds an unfamiliar owl perched on the window ledge, he unfolds a scribbled note with trembling fingers. It reads:
We're going into hiding.
I don't believe that it's you. I don't think that he does, either. I pray that I'll see you on the other side of this. Take care of yourself, Remus.
Love always,
Lily
Remus wishes he could remember how to take care of himself. He watches the scrap of paper drift to the floor, catching the sun and fluttering slowly like a film.
He clenches his teeth against the pricking sensation in his eyes. He remembers Lily's frown of concentration, James's wicked smirk, Lily's raucous laughter, James's stupid hair. He mourns because they are lost to him. Leaning down to pick up the note, he feels very old.
It is dawn. Remus remains entirely still for a moment, face down on the floor of the Shack, regaining consciousness. He can feel a broken bone in his arm, several gashes down his side, and an overwhelming sense that something is not right. Sirius is not there. It is not this which inherently scares Remus; He hadn't expected him, not really. Last full moon, Sirius had been rough and silent, helping out of necessity and not care, and Remus has still not seen him since he walked out three weeks previously. It is instead a kind of disquieting electricity in the air which raises an uncontrollable tide of panic in Remus even as he fights it down.
He struggles to his feet, gasping, only to fall again. Gritting his teeth, he makes another effort, this time managing to stumble to the box where he had carefully placed his wand.
The sound of the door opening downstairs causes Remus to freeze instantly. He has to physically restrain the "Sirius," which forms on his lips. It is not Sirius. He is sure of it.
When Albus Dumbledore appears in the doorframe, he feels his stomach clench as though some invisible force is suddenly trying to crush him. It takes every ounce of his control not to vomit on the wooden floor in front of him.
He sees the pity in Dumbledore's eyes before he speaks. His chest turns to ice.
"Remus, something has happened."
"NO! NO, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND," Remus screams. His unshakable, meek exterior has shattered like every other piece of his life. He feels a sharp pain in his throat, but he continues to scream through his tears. He cannot remember when he started crying, "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. I LOVED HIM, AND HE—AND...HE KILLED THEM."
Dumbledore is at his side now, gripping Remus's clenched fists. When they make eye contact, Dumbledore does not look away. Remus sees a flash of pain.
"I do," he says, quietly.
Remus sits on the freshly turned earth, staring at the darkening sky without seeing. The bitter wind pulls at his scarf, but he does not notice the chill.
It's not that he feels particularly close to them here. Despite this strange, numbing disconnect between his brain and his body, they seem suddenly omnipresent. It's that he cannot bring himself to leave now and cannot think where to go at all.
As a bone-deep weariness begins to overwhelm him, Remus lays down with his back to the cold headstone. He closes his eyes, and then he is unconscious.
He doesn't even notice when Albus Dumbledore, with a loud crack, appears in the cemetery to collect him.