Lights Dashed Out
Disclaimer - It all belongs to JK Rowling and various coroporations. You should know that by know.
Author's Note - This is my first try at fanfiction after a long break from fandom. I'm sure it's horrid but hopefully not unbearably so. If you are reading it, please do take the time to leave a review.
No matter in which direction he glanced, eyes wide and pleading, there was not the faintest bit of light. His dogged senses, all but sight, were ravaged. Sounds of struggles, tastes of blood, stenches of death, and continuing touches of darkness were on their knees begging for him to rest, to put them to peace . . . but the images that lay beyond the darkness threatened to undo him so much more.
Casting the notion of sleep to some far off place where it could be kept at bay, he laid against the damp and filthy floor of this prison and promised himself he would not give in, would not succumb, to thought, to wishes, to forbidden things. He promised himself he would pretend to forget that if he let his hand wander, his fingers would brush against her palm. If he let his eyes fall shut, he would see her once again.
A flash of brilliant red, her hair falls around the beautiful, milky flesh of her bare shoulders. Dazzling white teeth take cover underneath her teasing pink lips – which are darting between bursts of laughter that throw her entire, fragile, form into quakes of laughter. The dazzling blue and green of the gray lake fades into the afternoon sky, winding around the large white clouds and pushing away any chance of rain and any chance of something to impede on their perfection.
The water is cold, but as it gently persuades him in deeper - to his thighs, now to his middle - it cascades down the middle of her back and reminds him that he would risk any element to be so close to her as those blessed droplets of water that kiss her skin. She's not swimming, like the graceful and adept being she is, but standing on her bare heels in the sandy ground beneath the plant growth at the bottom of the lake. She is twirling from front to back, jumping forward and looking absolutely delighted with the state of . . . well, this one undisturbed day.
He's taking too long to become acquainted with the liquid shine and she reminds that he's far too old for this as she unexpectedly heads for him, ignores the subtle and agonizing ways their bodies brush against one another, and thumbs the worried lines on his face. Pulls him farther in . . .
His eyes spring open so suddenly, with such force, that the tops of his feathered eyelashes brush the place beneath his furrowed brow. His throat has closed in, and he finds he cannot breathe – no, he wishes he had not to breathe without being part of her.
Light has returned to the final place of torment. He supposes it is from the sun that would dare to continue rising, that would dare to pretend it hadn't shone brightly over them when they, too, were radiated in warmth.
He continues to lie like this, pushing past the trivial wonder if his crushed leg would give out should he try to stand. There is no longer any need to find anyplace else because this is where she last was. This is where she will be forever.
Minutes, hours (or days) had passed when he finally let his tear spent eyes leave the scuttling spiders and smooth stone along the ceiling of the cave that he crawled into to hide. Like he had known, tantalizingly close enough to lay a hand or even a last sweet kiss against, there lies a beautiful young woman. Limbs twisted cruelly and eyes staring blankly back at him. The fire in her hair cascaded in a river that dried along a wound ripped upon her neck.
Bright white stars winked merrily at him, not bothering with wondering why his back was riveting in such pain. Their partner, the moon, pulled at him and demanded a long and drawn out howl. Muscles ripped out from where they belonged, joined new ones that should have been foreign to his rapidly morphing human form. As thick coarse hair dotted his cheekbones, the last sensible instinct in him cried in relief at the sight of the cave.
This would not be refuge for him because there had never been any such thing until morning. Perhaps, though, it could be refuge to all else who might risk stumbling upon him. It might block any who might risk the guess that even in this monstrous guise, he would still be Moony, Remus, Professor Lupin. He would still be able to care and do anything to prevent them from hurt.
Running, now on all fours, he only wants to carry himself as far into those twisted black cavernous tunnels as he can. Make his full wolf self that is only moments away find no hope in its attempt to escape. Keep himself, this monster, inside where he can harm none.
It's too late to change this course of action when he whimpers in the cave entrance, when he sees something that instantly has his heart pounding and his blood running cold. It is a vision of red hair, spattered freckles . . . and presently, a heartbreaking picture of confusion. She is sheltering herself tonight, away from the camp they've made, where she knows he's grown dangerously unlike himself. She is, at once, not at all sure why this wolf, slowly ridding itself of her love's face, is here and now.
The confusion might have been blessedly easier to remember, rather than the stricken understanding when he lunges for her sweet flesh and dashes out all light.