Remus did not break down and run away. Far from it. Mind over matter, wand over werewolf, as his mother used to stoutly tell him.

When he had walked out of his Transfiguration exam in a small daze of relief and wrist pain, Remus did not run for the hills. He did not break down. Once a month was enough for experiencing an absence of mental faculties. This was his own little proverb.

It was difficult, though, much more so than the exam had been. Oddly, the constant sense of dread had cleared his mind somewhat, allowing him to absorb far too much of his Transfiguration revision. Unsettlingly, it seemed that educational benefits could indeed arise from an obsessive evasion of certain thoughts.

And now it was Friday. Terrible, horrible, disastrous, exam-free, festive Full Moon Friday. And Remus hadn't broken down and run away. Rationalising with himself, Remus decided that hiding away from the world was a much better option.

Before breakfast, he had told James and Peter that they shouldn't bother coming to the Shrieking Shack that night. He ignored their heated protests. He hadn't told Sirius anything. It was hard to tell who had been avoiding who more enthusiastically since the Defence exam and James' romantic disgrace. Personally, Remus was certain that he was making more of an effort. After all, he'd never heard of anyone sneaking away to hide in the cramped niche behind the portrait of Cecil the Sane, who, as it turned out, did not live up to his name. It had been true desperation that had directed his feet.

It wasn't like Remus could go and hide in any of the usual places. The library was far too obvious, the Shrieking Shack more still. He couldn't prop his book upright beneath his bed, and the prefects' bathroom was too busy at this time of year, as stressed prefects sought relief amidst the bubbles.

He wasn't too sure why Sirius seemed to be attempting to avoid him as well. He'd thought that their last conversation had pretty much exposed Sirius' inclination to drag things best left forgotten into the open. In fact, Sirius had been far too lucid in his intention to wield certain events as weapons of humiliation against Remus.

Evidently, one friendship-destroying betrayal was nowhere near enough for the heir to the Black fortune. But in the end, that wasn't such a big surprise – or it shouldn't have been. Remus knew he was at fault here, too.

Every second of every minute of every hour crammed awkwardly behind a chuckling Cecil (the incessantly psychotic, Remus would add in his head) was a second spent in total awareness of one fact: Remus Lupin was a coward.

This conclusion could not be denied. If Remus had even a speck of Sirius' capacity for bluntness, he would have taken a step forward down there by the lake after the Defence exam. He would have taken Sirius' lead, and spoken the truth. He could have been a man about the whole sodding situation for once, instead of the snivelling puppy that crawled out of the Shrieking Shack once a bloody month.

"Wouldn't want one of us getting the wrong idea, Sirius? What exactly is the wrong idea? Do you remember crying, Sirius, begging me to forgive you for-" (even Remus' cruel thought-voice wavered) "-for almost condemning me to death? You know what I remember? I remember that you were the one who grabbed me, you were the one with the red-rimmed eyes and the blotchy skin, you leaned forward, and you kissed me. So what's the wrong idea? That you like me, Sirius Black? That you're a-"

No. He'd dropped his bloody hand from his bloody lip, like some pathetic Hufflepuff First Year girl. He'd turned away, unable to face the cruel smile that twisted across Sirius' face, because, after all, he had had the wrong idea. Obviously. And no matter how scary and weird and awkward that idea had been, the knowledge that it was wrong was infinitely worse.

Remus needed Sirius – no, he needed Padfoot – during the full moon. Both of them knew that. Waking up in the Hospital Wing last month had been almost unbearable, though the physical pain had been admittedly overshadowed by the agony of betrayal. Mentally, emotionally, and physically, he needed Padfoot in the room of the Shrieking Shack. It was a sickening, brutal weakness, made all the worse by the fact that Remus had absolutely no control over what or who he wanted when he was a werewolf.

Weak coward.

And James and Peter couldn't come either, because Sirius would come with them, and even though Remus needed Sirius, Sirius could not come, because then Sirius would have won, and he'd know that Remus had had the wrong idea for sure, and it was obvious why Transfiguration revision had been so simple for the brain compared to this mess.

Was it possible that he was over-thinking this whole situation? Remus could almost hear Cecil's shocked dismissal of such a notion. As he eased himself painfully from the recess behind the portrait, wary of the hour, feeling the lunar pull within his very bones, he tried to shake himself up, find some strength for the lonely night ahead.

He paid too much attention to Madam Pomfrey's distracted chatter as she escorted him across the grounds, earning a suspicious glance. It was almost funny; Remus hadn't been aware that listening courteously to an authority figure provided grounds for suspicion. He caught himself imagining the smirk on Sirius' face at the thought, and decided that being suspiciously attentive to Madam Pomfrey was the better option.

He sat on the stained floorboards in his room at the end of the tunnel and traced his fingers through the dust. Two sets of five spread fingers. Only one set on his calf. He didn't know whose nails had raked across his werewolf skin. James had never told him.

He held his palms towards him and noted the grey smudges on his fingertips. Dirty. Dirty secret. Guilty. His fault. Sirius' fault too. But the dirt was on Remus' hands, wasn't it, and all he had done was to allow himself to be kissed for one desperate moment.

Remus slumped forward, nose pressed against the dusty floorboards, and he couldn't even move himself to sneeze. He should really get undressed. He should really unbutton his shirt. He should really kick his shoes and let Sirius help him to remove his so –

Remus woke, and the pain was not as bad as he had expected. This made him angry, and, with a squeak of protesting bedsprings, he twisted forwards, doggedly ignoring the nausea.

His ribs should by all rights be in torment right now. He shouldn't be able to breathe this easily. His nausea shouldn't be controllable. He was going to kill James and Peter with his bare, barely scratched-up hands, and he was going to enjoy it in this wretchedly pain-free state.

"You're awake," an infuriatingly familiar voice murmured from extremely nearby.

Remus snapped his head around to his left so fast that he received a ready reminder that he hadn't completely avoided the pain of transformation. No. Surely even Sirius wouldn't have stooped so low –

– but there was the evidence.

Somehow, through pure guile and outrageous audacity, Sirius had managed to acquire a bed for himself in the Hospital Wing – a bed that had been set up directly beside Remus' bed in his supposedly private post-full moon corner. Even the bloody curtains had been opened between their beds, undoubtedly a misguided gesture of kindness from Madam Pomfrey, who had always been too susceptible to Sirius' dark-eyed fabrications.

Remus felt like he had been force-fed three goblets of pepperup potion. His face was burning with anger, and he was finally beginning to find it difficult to breathe. Noticing that his hands were shaking, he stuffed his fists with blanket, squeezing and trembling and fixing his eyes on the twin lumps of his toes beneath the covers.

This was unbelievable. Of all the things Sirius had done. Of all the (increasingly cruel) pranks. And where was James, keeping Sirius' toes sharply at the line with a fistful of friendship contract and Peter's steady support?

For Merlin's sake, Sirius even looked pale!

"Why," Remus hissed through clenched teeth, glaring at his toe-lumps, "are you here?"

There was a pregnant pause, during which neither boy moved.

"I needed to go to the Hospital Wing."

"Yeah, right," Remus spat, resolve breaking, and he turned around to meet Sirius' eyes, only to find that the other boy was staring at the end of his bed. For some reason, this agitated Remus further, and he slid back down to his elbows, seething. "How'd you do it then? Tell Pomfrey that a flobberworm bit your integrity clean off?"

Another pause, broken only by Remus' uneven breathing. Then –

"Yeah. That's what I told her. Told James it'd work."

There was an odd tone in Sirius' voice which Remus heard even through his anger. There was no triumph, not one hint of bravado; not the slightest echo of the sardonic cruelty from the lakeside conversation. His voice was flat, emotionless.

Despite all his fervent conviction, Remus' eyes slid slowly back across to Sirius' bed, finding that the boy had rolled over, turning his face to the curtains. The thumping in Remus' chest seemed to flicker out as he saw that the standard striped Hospital Wing pyjama top had ridden up to expose the pale ridges of Sirius' spine, his back, bare and vulnerable in the light.

It was a nightmare. It had to be a nightmare.

Remus' pulse returned with a vengeance, pounding angrily in his forehead, causing his fingers to twitch slightly as they ripped up his pyjama leg to see the visible scars, to see the nail marks against his bruised skin.

No, no, no, his pulse beat out steadily, no, no, no, no, it can't be, no, no, no.

"I clawed your back," Remus said blankly, and his voice was odd and low. "You were Padfoot last night, and you came to the Shrieking Shack, and I hurt you. You had to get your wounds treated."

As if from a great distance, he heard the squeaking of a nearby bed as Sirius turned to finally face him. Grey eyes watched uncertainly as Remus' mouth worked silently, as if repeating his own words back to himself.

"You were right about Pomfrey," Sirius said quietly, but the smile on his lips seemed wrong, false. "I had to tell her quite a tale involving over-enthusiastic revision quills to explain away the marks."

Remus' eyes were fastened to Sirius' chest, as if he could see straight through the flesh, and was still examining the set of long, raking scratches down his back. When Sirius finished speaking, it was as if Remus had been pulled from a stupor, and his anger came raging back through his veins.

"Why did you have to come, Sirius?" he hissed, propping himself up against his elbows again. "You made me hurt you." His laugh was bitter as he fell back against his pillows. "No you didn't. It was my fault, of course. I hurt you. I hope you're satisfied. I hope you think that we're even now."

"Even?" Sirius laughed. "We won't be anywhere close to even until we've talked about what happened with Snape, Remus, all of it, every awful, humiliating detail."

It was the bitter edge to the laughter that sent a chill through Remus, reminding him immediately of his last conversation with Sirius.

"We're going to have to talk about that too, aren't we? Wouldn't want one of us getting the wrong idea."

"Don't make me talk to you," Remus whispered, wishing he could bury his head deep within his blankets and smother Sirius' voice out.

Coward. He was a weak coward.

"Haven't you done enough, Sirius?"

Say it.

"You serve my head on a silver platter to the Ministry executioners and then you – you kiss me? And talking about it will make us even?"

Cowardice was better. He should've stuck with cowardice. He could feel Sirius' shock from the bed beside his. Evidently, Sirius had not expected Remus to actually breach the subject. Now that he had, his words hung in the air like a purple hippogriff, and neither of the boys was willing to expose his necks to appease the beast.

"I… I kissed you."

"Yes." And then, Remus surprising himself with his daring, "Why?"

"Why didn't you talk to me this last month?" Sirius swallowed audibly, and continued, swerving past Remus' question with the inelegance of an inept dueller. "Was it because of – of the kiss, or because of the Snape thing?"

Remus froze. His mouth cracked open, but he didn't know what he could say. What was the answer to that question? Did he even know?

The Snape thing! Say the Snape thing! Say the Snape thing! Do it. Come on.

But it wasn't quite the truth. He felt the urge to touch his lips at the whispers of memory, but he physically restrained himself. He knew without a doubt that he had had the wrong idea. There was only one way to avoid the arsenal of humiliation that Sirius was holding in Remus' face, and that was to tell the truth, a truth which ultimately meant nothing much at all.

"I can't forgive you for either," he whispered, and watched dumbly as Sirius slumped wordlessly into his pillows, turning his poor injured back to Remus once more.

A/N: Oh, wow. Even I was crying out for fluff by the end of that.

As my favourite hitchhiking manual proclaims, DON'T PANIC. That infamous, tortuous kiss will not remain solitary for too much longer. Indeed, a companion may just be coaxed out by your REVIEWS.

**Nano = 18,164**

REVIEW. Please? You surely don't want me to resort to poetry... again. :)

xx Froody