A/N: Written in 2018... / Oh wow, projecting much? Was 2018 me okay?
So I ran 'til I couldn't
And I screamed 'til my voice was gone
I believed what I shouldn't have, I don't know why
But these memories are nothing to me, just Salt
Ambition is the key, everyone always told Remus. That's something he understands, and he doesn't start to question the fact he's lacking it, up until he's sixteen years old and everyone starts talking about how they're all going to do wonderful things after graduating Hogwarts. Gryffindors joke that ambition is an inherently Slytherin trait, and that, despite the fact that being ambitious can ever be considered a bad thing, too much of it can and will lead someone to become somewhat megalomaniac, and that you should watch out for those people. After all, there's a war going on, and dreaming of achieving great things is a luxury he'll never be able to afford.
He feels the need to re-evaluate his feelings, one day. He really doesn't have a reason to, but, maybe he doesn't need one. He knows that doing so would have no better effect on him than straight up physical torture, but he thinks that, in some twisted way, he may even enjoy the pain.
Remus has never been particularly fond of his condition, to the point where it was safe to say it defined everything Remus hated about himself, and he's convinced being a werewolf is at the root of most of his problems. He always feels worried about everything, constantly, and it's wearing him down more and more everyday, a weight he'll ever be able to get off his back, and he one day comes to the conclusion that if scratching and biting himself at every full moon doesn't kill him, the pain of the transformations, the even more excruciating pain he always seems to find himself in after each of them, or the sheer anxiety that comes from keeping so many things from the external world will.
But he knows how werewolves are seen by the wizarding world, as mere animals worthy of nothing more than being put down out of pity.
There's only so much humanity he has left, and he doesn't dare thinking about what would happen, would he be stripped of it by the Ministry of Magic if they knew.
Alas, Remus is aware he'll never be able to pin it all on lycanthropy and get away with it.
Part of it thinks he might have been cursed, even before his birth. What a ridiculous idea, he tells himself, but sometimes he fears all of his chances at happiness might have been jinxed from the moment he was brought into this world.
He doesn't admit it, but he's somewhat lost. He never knows what to do, what to think, who to talk to. Logically speaking, he knows he should probably just lie down and get some rest, but his first reflex is to think, think, and think some more, taking tangent after tangent, until his thoughts are too loud, and his headache near deafening.
Repressing one's emotions is never a healthy mechanism is something Remus also knows, having spent hours reading books about Muggle psychology, but somehow apathy wins over common sense, and he decides he doesn't care.
In the past, he had thought of his lack of self-preservation as somewhat disturbing, but he realizes it's now become one of his most problematic traits. Not that there is anything he can do about it, when he thinks of it. While the lingering uncertainty of what happens after one dies is enough to keep him alive, he doesn't find himself too keen on doing so.
He never questions his own purpose, or his place in this universe, because he doesn't care, nor does he want pretend he does, or that he ever did. He's tried Muggle philosophy too, and has ever since hated the subject with a burning passion, wondering whether he's missing something or if muggles are fed all this rubbish as a way to alleviate the sense of impending doom that comes with being a powerless, infinitesimal fraction of this universe they know nothing about.
No, Remus doesn't care about purpose. He never thinks about humans being a simple evolutionary mistake, or how every form of life is an accident, because it isn't something he'll ever be able to find relevant in any way.
But he does wonder, from time to time, what's the point of being here if all he's ever going to feel is pain and despair. He doesn't know what's to come for him, if he ever makes it past graduation. Having those thoughts isn't normal, he thinks. Just another bullet point to add to the list of I'm messed up.
He feels lonely, but he knows he's not alone, which makes it all more frustrating. After all, he has James, Peter, his best friends, as well at as Sirius, with whom he may-or-may-not be in a relationship. These three are willing to listen to him at anytime- despite being a little insensitive at times -on accident, so he doesn't hold it against them: after all, there's no book on how to react when you learn a loved one is a werewolf-, but some part of him always fears he might be a burden to them. He's a werewolf, a dark creature, only part human, not quite worth befriending.
This is paradoxical, and he knows it. He's stuck in some sort of vicious cycle, with what he fears is no hope of ever getting out.
Guilt is always clawing at him, eating away his personality. He knows he's always had a strange tendency to feel guilty over things he'll never have any control over, but again, his brain has never been one to follow reason, and he often finds himself feeling guilty over pretending everything is fine.
Obviously, this is the farthest thing from the truth, but Remus finds himself slipping away, his facade crumbling as easily as the very little amount resolve he started with, until the day it becomes too much, and he wonders whether he might just be a lost case.
He can't quite put his finger on what's been bothering him so much that his thought process has stopped functioning altogether, but Remus decides to add it to the already list of things he doesn't care about.
(As it is, the list has been lengthening at an alarming rate lately, and he decides that, ironically enough, he doesn't care about that either.)