Title: I Will Die Alone and Be Left There
Author: Christine
Summary: A month after the death of his friends, an exhausted Remus returns for the first time to his old flat to struggle with his feelings for his ex-lover, the traitor, and finds something unexpected there that could be his undoing.
Warnings: Mentions of canon character death, major survivor-guilt-ridden angst, and slash.
I will die alone and be left there. Well I guess I'll just go home or God knows where,
because death is just so full and mine so small. Well I'm scared of what's behind and what's before.
It has been a month, and today is the very first day it has snowed, the flakes falling lightly, drifting in the shadows of the streetlights like bits of ash tumbling from the dark sky. A chill bites in the air, not unusual for November but that it has been unseasonably warm this year and so Remus is only wearing a thin jumper as he taps his wand against the lock on the pub door, half looking over his shoulder to assure that no muggles are watching, and half wondering why muggle pubs have to stay open so sodding late on weekends, longing for the pre-full moon time off that Ministry regulations might offer him in a wizard job if Ministry regulations would allow him to hold a job.
He would have been exhausted no matter what time he got off tonight, less than twenty-four hours before his transformation, but forced to close at two o'clock after breaking up several drunken fist fights leaves him remarkably tired in comparison to most months, and as he slips his wand back into the back pocket of his trousers and trudges down the road he finds himself wishing he'd made his stop at the apothecary's before work instead of saving it for after.
If the cold is biting, then the warm that overtakes him as he steps through the door of the Leaky Cauldron is oppressively hot, almost stifling and as his cold skin starts to thaw he feels as if his skin is melting like the snow in his hair is. He keeps his head down on his way out to the back, taps the brick wall, and slides out of Diagon Alley via the first available side street, hoping to avoid any wandering eyes or suspicions that his appearance this late might draw.
Thankfully, Knocturn Alley is equally as desolate; it is quiet and dark save the faint candlelight flickering from the window of his destination. He shuffles quietly, unnoticed, across the wet cobblestone and through the door, a bell tinkling above him on the door jamb as he makes his way inside.
"Ah, Mr Lupin," a gruff, familiar voice greets him. "Full moon already, is it?"
"Tomorrow," he mumbles, fumbling in his pockets for his money.
The man behind the counter slides a small bottle towards him. "You still owe me from last month, so that'll be five galleons."
Remus pours what he has into his hand, his trembling fingers separating the coins from the flimsy muggle bills he hasn't had time to exchange yet this month, and comes up with several sickles and a knut. He swallows. "Looks like I'm going to have to hold on another month, unless you want muggle money."
"You know I'm not thrilled about this," the man growls.
"I'm sorry. It's been a rough month."
"You're not the only one with problems, friend." The man gives him a stern, wary look that says he is about to say something else, but he miraculously keeps his mouth closed and hands over the potion, which Remus takes with a grateful nod and a forced smile that looks more like a grimace.
Outside the storefront, he pockets the bottle, exchanging it for his keys which he grips firmly as he leans against the cold stone wall. He breathes heavily, staring at the flakes dropping towards him.
He is utterly fatigued in every way. Mentally, emotionally, physically. His legs threaten to buckle under him, weak from lack of sleep, from a month of torment. Even the small key to his parents' old cottage where he had been living weighs heavy enough in his hand that he can barely keep a hold on it. Mustering up the energy to apparate without splinching himself into a thousand different pieces spread evenly all over the British countryside is draining even to think about.
Remus stands for a minute, wondering if it would be feasible to exchange his bottle of Wolfsbane for a vial of Moonseed poison instead, drink that with the full moon to kill not just the beast, but also the man within, or to unfold the paper bills in his pocket, walk to the nearest muggle pub, and buy enough whiskey to destroy his liver and drown his brain somewhere in an alley where the police wouldn't find him until he was gone.
Instead he grips the key tighter, dreading the next minute, stomach clenching. Until he feels something else. Something he had forgotten. Another key, looped around the same ring, weighty against the backs of his fingers; he suddenly remembers the flat, irresistibly close, just a few blocks from the Leaky Cauldron, he wouldn't even have to apparate, could just walk in and fall onto the bed – close enough to the door that he'd barely have to take a step.
No, he tells himself firmly. He has not used this key in a month, has not even thought of it. Has let it brush past his knuckles every night as he opened the back door, the flat it would open rotting of disuse on the top floor of a pretty little house in London.
But the snow is turning his skin blue, and the idea of apparating makes his stomach turn and his temples pound in quick rhythm with his heart, and so it's back into Diagon Alley that his feet slowly carry him, back out onto the muggle street, up to the stoop of a too-familiar building where they key fits, just right, into the lock even with his grip faltering and his palms sweating as he shivers.
The streetlight out front has gone out, in need of a new bulb since he left, and the other lodgers seem to be asleep already judging by the lack of lights, but the front door slams shut behind him and the stairs creak despite his best efforts not to disturb anyone.
At the top of the stairs he grips the doorknob and asks himself, what are you doing here, Remus, but graces himself with no satisfactory answer except that he is so very tired after all this time, so very in need of a place in which to close his heavy eyes and rest. Weary as he is, he thinks that this is not the place. He can feel memories seeping through the floorboards, under the crack of the door and out of the walls, warm and sharp, pricking his weary heart.
He doesn't know that he is opening the door as his arm pushes out in front of him, isn't aware that he has taken the two steps that will put him into his old flat or that he is now leaning against the door of the home he once shared with the traitor. All he knows is that he wants to sleep, and that if he doesn't look around he won't see the dishes left in the sink or the clothes left on the floor, or the picture frames he slammed down on the bookshelves so he couldn't see the faces in them – faces he knew were still now probably waving and smiling out as they were when they were taken – and maybe if he didn't see those things, he wouldn't have to remember where he was or what had transpired there.
He wants to take the three steps to the bed, but his exhaustion pins him to the door behind him, just as his lover once pinned him to this same door when they were too wrapped up in the feel of each other, the rush of skin and fumbling hands tugging at clothes, and the feeling of wholeness that they brought one another to take those same three steps. Just as his lover once held his wrists against this wood as they ground their hips against one another in a frantic and practised rhythm, breath heavy on his neck, panting or moaning. Just as his lover—no, he corrects himself, the traitor, and prevents himself from thinking once more.
His throat is now dry, his tongue heavy, his head spinning slightly. The bed seems so far, the kitchen and a glass of water much, much closer and so he crosses the room, eyes closed, hoping that familiarity and muscle memory will carry him where he needs to go so that he can keep his mind as blank as possible.
The cool water soothes his throat, but the feel of the laminate countertop under his the pads of his cold fingers brings back other sensations, like the brush of lips against his shoulder or a soft whisper in his ear, and he remembers standing in front of this countertop with legs wrapped firmly about his waist – the counter was the perfect height for them, and that was one of the things they had liked so much about the flat, though Remus had wanted to obliviate the realtor after being persuaded into trying it out – with warm hands scratching at his bare chest, tracing the lines of the scars that years of full moons had left him with, with lips sucking and biting at his neck, with a low voice alternating between growling and whimpering his name, Remus, with each touch, and oh God how that feeling built up in the pit of his stomach until he could barely see straight ahead, which didn't matter as his eyes were closed to let his hands guide him as he mapped out his lover's strong body.
There was something in the pit of his stomach now, too, but it was a feeling far, far from lust, and it's closer to the churning of bile and the knotting of muscles clenching in an attempt to stop him from retching into the sink, still filled with the pots from Remus' last meal in this flat. But it isn't the contents of his stomach that he needs to vomit; rather, it's the contents of his heart, and somehow he thinks that would look even worse than bits of half-digested food painting the bottom of the steel sink.
A sob gathers in his throat, so he swallows it, which adds to the churning of his insides.
He has to open his eyes now if he wants to maneuver his way back to the bed without falling, and his eyes seem unable not to glance about the room at every detail.
His fingertips brush along the backsides of overturned frames, and as he passes each one, he can imagine exactly which picture it is. In this one, he knows he has on a shy smile and a new tuxedo, one he hadn't been able to afford but had insisted on paying for even when James had offered because he already knew James was paying enough for this day and didn't want him to have to think about money because it was his day to think about Lily and only Lily. He knows that the arm of another tuxedoed man, the best man, is wrapped around his waist, and that man, between the champagne and the joy of seeing his best friend married, has a smile that lights up the entirety of Great Britain spread across his face. In the next frame, that same man smokes a fag on the roof of this very building, and Remus remembers that the man had been naming the constellations in a sort of nervous pattern that night, the night before heading out on an Order mission that would leave him without his lover for a month.
Remus stops walking and wonders to himself if the traitor had consulted He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named on that reconnaissance trip as well.
He moves away from the pictures; the stability a handrail had given his uneven gait was not worth the anxiety the memories were drudging up. Instead, he leans against the opposite wall as he slowly makes his way towards the bed.
Before he finds the bed, he finds a corner, the carpet still stained with blood he never bothered to clean – his own blood, now dried brown into the dark rug and against the scratched paint of the walls, which he usually cleaned the day after the full moon, but hadn't had the time to last month. Last month he sat here, in this corner, while his life fell apart outside these walls and he didn't even know it. While perhaps he transformed alone for the first time in months because the man who usually joined him was off releasing the secret of James and Lily Potter's whereabouts to the darkest wizard ever to live.
The thought of his best friends dying while he crouched here in this room, subdued but certainly not himself, certainly not aware of what was happening outside these walls, disturbs him. He would call himself cowardly, but then he remembers James' constant insistence that this condition was not a part of him, was merely a sickness for which they'd yet to find a cure. The thought hardly appeases his nerves, even as he finally collapses onto the soft blanket that covers the bed.
The bed. He doesn't want to allow himself to think about this bed, the tangle of sheets and bodies, to think of anything that happened here. The warmth of a lover's kiss, the soft slow pulsing of their bodies twisted together, the feel of another body wrapped impossibly tight around him. He doesn't want to think. Just wants to sleep.
But when he closes his eyes, he can still see the flat around him, the crimson sheets and the dim light that filters ever so faintly through the tiny window. But now there is a man by his side, a pale man with dark hair and scruffy facial hair, snoring lightly on the pillow next to him.
The man shifts slightly, one eye fluttering open. "You watching me, Moony?" he mumbles, his voice thick with sleep.
"Yeah," Remus replies, honestly. Always honestly. His lover – the traitor - was always one to fall asleep quickly, leaving Remus awake to watch him long after they were both spent. Leaving Remus awake to think about the best way to wake him, or the war raging just outside their thin walls, or the way that being next to this man, even naked, made him feel invincible.
"'S late. Shouldn't you be asleep?"
"Can't. Shhh. Go back to sleep, love."
The man props himself up on his elbow. "Hey Moony."
"Yeah."
"Love you. Want you."
The man moves his lips to Remus' hand, slowly tracing the line of his bones up his arm, to his shoulder, his neck, and finally his lips, slow, intentional kisses that raise goosebumps on the flesh they touch, and if he could, he would let this man kiss every last inch of him until there was nothing left in the world but their bodies.
Remus forces his eyes open, stares pointedly at the ceiling of the flat, an unremarkable ceiling, with chipping white paint. But Remus knows this ceiling, and even it brings back memories, brings back a warmth in his abdomen and a sharp pain that fades into a dull ache and a feeling of fullness.
He sits up, wondering if he still has a few drops of sleeping potion left in his bedside table – the one he bought once after the full moon because it helped block out the nightmares and began to use so regularly that he'd needed to buy it almost as often as his Wolfsbane potion. He had a bottle back at the cottage, but couldn't seem to remember if there was one in the flat, still.
He finds the drawer lacking, with only one empty bottle, though he swears he had at least one more sip left, and he wonders if maybe he put it in the wrong drawer last time. The other beside table is only an arms length away from where he sits on the bed, and so he pulls the drawer out and brings it to his lap, hunting for any sign of a bottle buried within the papers that fill it. This is not his drawer, and the bottle is not here, but he recognizes the papers, as they are in his handwriting.
Letters, every one of them. All signed with some variation of "love, Remus" or "always yours, Moony," dating years back, even to fifth and sixth year at Hogwarts, and all addressed the same way: "Sirius,"
To the traitor, he thinks.
He shudders, and shifts the papers aside when he feels something bulky hiding under them. But it's not the bottle, no, and now more than ever he wishes it was, because what it is instead brings so many other memories to his mind.
A box. A small box, black and velvet, sitting heavy in his hand.
Remus has never seen the box before, nor the two golden bands nestled inside of it. But he knows exactly what they are.
He can practically hear his lover's excited voice, so many times over the weeks just before everything had happened.
"Moony, I've got something I need to ask you-"
"Here, I want to show you something-"
"Oi, come here, I've got a present-"
How many times had he been interrupted in his attempts to give one of these to Remus? How many times had Remus dismissed his excitement as something irrelevant or trivial?
Though Remus had never heard the words, he heard them now in the back of his mind, imagining the bright smile, tinged with an unusual nervousness, the warm feeling of a hand wrapped around his.
Will you marry me?
Can't—you know the Ministry won't—
Oh, sod the Ministry, Moony. I don't care. Marry me. We can handle the formalities ourselves, can't we? Do you, Remus John Lupin, take me, Siri—
He takes the rings from the box. Pure gold, he can tell, goblin made. He should sell them, use the money to pay off his debts. Slip them in his pockets and head back to Knockturn Alley where he is sure he'll find a willing buyer who can pay a fair number of galleons for one of them, then back to the apothecary to pay for his Wolfsbane, and maybe a small vial of Moonseed as well. Instead, he walks to the small window, opens it, the cold night air hitting him instantly, and throws them out, into the bank of snow that has already built up along the edge of the street. They barely make a sound, the snow softening their descent onto the concrete.
When he closes the window, he retches onto the floor, an amalgam of food and bile and emotion and memory, mixing on his sleeve with his tears as he wipes his mouth, trembling, shaking, struggles to his feet, pulling his wand from his back pocket.
Two or three shield charms around the walls of the flat should do, he thinks, to protect the others in the house, and as soon as they have been silently cast, he whispers, incendio, and apparates away with a crack as the papers and the sheets, the clothes and the photographs, the carpet and the plaster of the walls go up in flames all around him.
When he slams down onto the back porch of the cottage, fumbling for his keys, he is oddly aware that he has splinched himself, and cuts run deep down the left side of his face, his arm, and his torso, covering his skin and his jumper in blood, though he can't feel it, he doesn't care, he barely notices, he just wants to vomit again and again until he can't stand, wishing he'd bought that poison when he could, wishing he had died instead of James or Lily or Peter, wishing he had never gone back to the flat, wishing he didn't feel so damn alone, wishing – for once – that tonight was the full moon so he could at least forget himself for a few hours, really completely lose himself, and instead of pulling out his keys he wraps his arms around himself, cradling his body as he sobs until morning.