The room was still quite dark, despite the fact that the sun was already climbing.  Sirius groaned and rolled over to glare at the clock on his bedside table.  The glowing green letters told him it was just past nine.  So did the clock, in its tinny, irritable voice.  Sirius ignored its mutterings and simply knocked it onto the floor. 

Scratching idly at his bandages, where the edges had frayed, Sirius moved to pull himself up into a sitting position but found something holding him back.  Looking down towards his feet, he could see a pale hand clutching the hem of his jeans.  The nails were broken and bloody and the knuckles were white, a mark of just how tight the grip was. 

Remus, human once more, was still dozing at the foot of Sirius' bed, the blankets drawn up about his shoulders.

Sirius' heart sank.  There was no doubt about it now.  Remus knew.  And he'd stayed with him all night, probably awake until the early hours of the morning.  That was just a "moony" thing.  He'd always forego his own well-being for a friend's.  But this wasn't what Sirius meant to happen.  He didn't want Remus to find out.  Didn't want to hurt him.  Whatever harm Sirius may have wished to cause himself, nowhere in his heart did he want to cause his only remaining friend any pain.

Feeling utterly wretched, Sirius sighed and gently pried open his friend's fingers and withdrew his leg.

~*~

When Remus opened his eyes, he immediately felt cold panic creeping up on him.  He vaguely recalled the change.  The change back to human was never quite as agonizing as that to wolf.  It felt more like a relief than anything else and he'd drifted off right after.

His brain faintly registered a stinging pain in his hands, but all he could focus on was the fact that Sirius wasn't there.

He heard the sound of movement downstairs in the kitchen.  Someone was rummaging through cupboards and drawers.  The rattle of cutlery and clinking of plates drifted through the floor.  Something crashed to the floor, followed by the sound of clashing metal.  A yell of pain and a string of curses rang out above the noise.

Then the fear set in.  "Oh God," he murmured.  "Sirius!"

Remus leaped to his feet.  Hastily pulling on a pair of jeans and keeping the blanket around his shoulders, he fled the room.

~*~

"Ah!" Sirius leaped back, hopping on one leg, grimacing in pain.  The plate lay smashed, scattered around several pieces of cutlery on the floor.  Sirius glared at them, still hopping.  "Shit!" He said.  "Fuck! Crap! Damn! Bugger!"  He knelt, still grumbling, and began to clean it up.

"Sirius!"

Sirius jumped, slipping and cutting his hand on what was left of the plate.  He was back on his feet, or foot in this case, and facing the source of the cry.  Remus was standing by the bench, leaning on it, breathing hard.   Sirius felt a pang of guilt as he looked at his friend's tired face.   He looked terrible, and should still be sleeping off the transformation. 

"I'm sorry Moony," Sirius said, looking sheepishly around him.  "I didn't mean to wake you up."

Remus almost laughed.  The person who was apologizing for waking him was the same person who had kept him up worrying practically every night for the last few months!  As far as Remus was concerned, Sirius was solely responsible for at least a dozen of his grey hairs.  But he kept these things to himself.  He eyed the mess on the floor, especially the knife, similar to the one from the day before. 

"I, I was hungry.  I wanted to make breakfast and…" he waved his arm at the mess at his feet and smiled nervously.  "Sorry."

Remus felt a flash of anger when he caught a glimpse of the bandage, revealed by the sudden movement of Sirius' arm.  But the feeling quickly dissipated and he was left feeling drained and empty.

"I'll clean it up now," Sirius said.  He kneeled down and resumed his task, ignoring the stinging cut on his palm and the dull pain in his foot where the plate had landed. 

"No, Sirius.  We need to talk."

Sirius didn't answer.  He just continued picking up miniscule pieces of porcelain from the tiles.

"Sirius, don't do this."

No answer.  Remus sighed.  This had always been a sort of "padfoot-ism", avoiding potentially awkward conversations by pretending not to listen.

"Sirius!"

Remus knelt beside him and put a restraining hand on his arm.  Sirius winced as the fingers brushed his forearm and Remus jerked his hand back. 

"Sirius, come on.  You can't avoid this forever."

Sirius sighed and got to his feet and followed Remus to the breakfast table.

"Fine," he said, defeated.  "Whatever."

~*~

Remus watched Sirius from his place opposite him, taking in every nervous twitch, every glance to the door, and every time his hands strayed to the frayed edges protruding from beneath his sleeve.  He'd never seen anyone he'd cared about like this.  Sure, they'd been through their fair share of depression and even cutting within the marauders, much of it done by Remus himself, but this ran much deeper. 

"Sirius," he began, trying to keep a waver out of his voice.  "What's going on?"

"Nothing." Sirius lied.  The irrational part of his brain held onto the idea that maybe Remus didn't know at all.

"Don't bullshit me!" Remus' eyes blazed for a moment, before he returned to his usual, calm self.  "I mean, Sirius, that I know about…you know…" he gestured to Sirius' arm.  It was still difficult to say.

Sirius looked guiltily down.  "Nothing's going on…I just…" He trailed off.

Remus looked him in the eye, saying nothing, as though trying to read what was going on in Sirius' mind.  But he might as well have asked the alarm clock, for all the information he got.  Sirius held his gaze for a moment before looking away.  There was a moment's more silence and then Remus asked the question that had been plaguing his mind all night.

"Why?"

Sirius paused before answering, "I don't know."

"Oh come off it, Padfoot!" Remus fought to keep his voice from rising.  "I've known you for over twenty years. I can tell when you're lying."

"So what if I am? It doesn't concern you!"

"Doesn't concern me?" Remus had one card to play, one way he knew he could get Sirius to tell him the truth.  But he hated himself for ever needing to use it.

"Sirius, do you remember the last time you went and did something like this?"

Sirius nodded slowly.

"Well, after Dumbledore had seen to you, he came and spoke to me.  He told me that if you ever did it again, or if I just couldn't cope any more, he would find somewhere else for you to stay."

Sirius looked shocked, and was shaking his head, the movement so small it was almost unnoticeable.  He opened his mouth to speak but Remus cut him off.

"And no, he didn't mean Hogwarts.  He couldn't risk one of the students catching you.  He said the only other person who he could trust was Snape."

Now Sirius spoke.  "What?" He shouted, pushing his chair back.  "Snape!"

Remus looked on, impassive.  Every word of it was true, but he had told Dumbledore that Sirius' safety was, and always would be, his concern alone.  And it killed him to have to use it like this.  But this was the way it had to be.

"Sirius, understand that keeping you here puts me in danger too. If you're going to be a danger to yourself, there's no knowing what you might do to somebody else." With one look at Sirius' hurt face, Remus knew he'd gone too far.

"Moony no!" There was a note of pleading in his voice.  "I wouldn't…I'd never…you know I'd never hurt you…you know…"

"I know, I know," Remus placated. 

"Then why…why would you…it doesn't even concern you!" Sirius' voice and face were unreadable, betraying no hint of what kinds of emotions he felt.

"Yes," Remus' voice was steely.  "It does.  Do you think it doesn't concern me to sit back and watch my oldest friend slipping further and further away from me?  Do you think I don't care when I see you doing this to yourself?" He leaned across the table and yanked back Sirius' sleeve. 

Sirius still said nothing.  Now it was time to lay it all on the line.  Remus let out the words that had been building up inside him.

"That Halloween, I lost everything.  When James and Lily died, that was bad enough.  Harry was still alive, and so were you and Peter.  I had someone to share it with."

Sirius was staring at him, transfixed.  Remus had never been the kind to open up before.  Sirius had always been the open one, the trusting one.  And now their roles were reversed.

"But then I got the news.  Peter was dead and you, you had been arrested for his murder.  And that was it.  I lost my whole life that day they dragged you screaming and pleading into the fortress.  You were the last.  The last person I had left.  After that I lost my job, my girlfriends and my flat.  I spent two years going in and out of shelters and dirty, low-rent flats.  And in the years that followed, I think I found it in my heart to forgive you."

Sirius blinked and looked away.

"But for twelve years I believed that I was alone, so completely alone.  And I had no one to help me, no one to even care what was happening."

Remus reached out one arm from beneath the blanket, still wrapped cloak-like about his shoulders.  Sirius looked down and his eyes widened. 

On the pale skin of Remus' forearm, amidst the scattered, jagged scars of claws and fangs, were about a dozen straight white lines, to clean to be claws.  Sirius knew that on the other arm there were scars like these, but they were older, fainter, and barely visible.

"You see?" Remus continued. "I slipped, quite a few times as a matter of fact, but the last time I did it was just before I got the DADA job.  And I never once had what you do now.  I never once had anyone who cared enough to try to stop me from hurting myself, from drowning in my own grief.

Now.  Why do you do it?"

"Because I…"  He faltered.  He knew he was just being stupid and stubborn.  That Remus wanted to help him.  Hang on, didn't he just threaten to send you away?  Sirius closed his mouth and shook is head.  He couldn't bring himself to open up.  Peter's betrayal, coupled with twelve years in Azkaban, had made it hard for him to trust people at the best of times.  And he hated himself for distrusting Remus, but that was the way things were.

"What?" Remus prompted.

"I need to go for a walk.  I'll be back later."  Remus shook his head.  Sirius stared for a moment, trying to look into his eyes and see what he was thinking.  But the eyes he'd once found as easy to read as an open book were blank and emotionless, closed to him.  Now it was Remus' turn to look away.

Sirius transformed and was out the door in seconds.  Remus watched him go, an unexplainable feeling of apprehension settling on his heart.  He held his head in his hands and closed his eyes, exhausted. 

"What now?"

A/N: *counts pages* 1,2,3,4,5…and I'm spent.  Wow, absolutely nothing happened in this chapter. How stupid. Oh well.  I think this chapter is setting up for something to happen.  Not sure what yet. Ideas and constructive criticism are most welcome. *pitifully shakes review tin again* Pweese? I'll give you a cookie.

Thankies to everyone who reviewed.  Iggie, blackmage718, Keeley (the leather pants!), Willowgyrl29, kat, k-da-great and everyone else.  *huggles*