Sleepwalking
Sirius opened the door to their dormitory laughing loudly with James about the third year they had just seen hexed within an inch of his life as he attempted to put moves on a fourth year. As he stepped in towards the dark mahogany bed posts with red and gold bed hangings, the sight of Remus sprawled carelessly on his bed in his threadbare pajamas made him smile softer.
“Moony, if you’re trying to seduce me with those worn out old jarmies it is working,” he joked as he crossed the wooden floor towards his own bed.
“Must you always hassle me, Sirius?” Remus groaned and tucked himself further into his covers, hiding his face.
He had been avoiding them lately, he did this after his transformations sometimes, though Sirius felt it was happening more and more. Remus was a quiet lad by nature, hesitant to allow himself to fully accept their friendship at first, and was prone to bouts of self-isolation. It got under Sirius’s skin and he could never leave well enough alone, always had to be poking and prodding at Remus to provoke interactions as often as he could.
“Oi, he needs his beauty rest to look so good, Pads. Leave him be,” James chidded before stepping into the bathroom.
He had assigned himself as the mediator between Remus and Sirius, much to Sirius’s discontentment, and frequently encouraged him to give Remus the space he clearly wanted. He had gone as far as to ban Sirius from the map during these periods. But what if Sirius didn’t want space? What if this emptiness gave him a stomach ache? Made him panic? He couldn’t just leave it all up to Remus or he would never come out of these moods, he was one of the most stubborn people Sirius had ever known.
He lay in bed that night, sleepless, trying not to let his thoughts slip back to Remus. He just had to know what was wrong, why he acted so distant at times like this. He found himself creeping across the room, floor creaking under his step, and standing in front of Remus’s bed. “Rems?” he whispered, pulling back his bed hangings to see his dark form buried in sheets.
Remus didn’t need to respond, he knew what Sirius wanted. He only grunted and lifted his arm with the covers, allowing Sirius to slide in.
“What’s wrong, Moony? We haven’t seen you in forever.”
“I see you everyday Pads,” Remus mumbled, faking like he didn’t understand exactly what Sirius meant. This wasn’t an issue of physical proximity but a metaphorical one. He turned to face away from Sirius, taking his warmth with him, and the weight which had lifted when he climbed into Remus’s bed came crashing back into his chest. Remus’s breath had burned with the alcohol on it.
____
It was always worse once everything had settled. The excitement of the transformation died, nobody suspenseful in anticipation, nobody anxiously awaiting his recovery. The attention was finally off of him- a place he had never really wanted it. He felt an almost Pavlovian response towards it now because of how good it felt to have Sirius’s eyes on him, but he had never enjoyed being watched too closely. Not used to it, he supposed, it made him itch.
Back home attention came in the form of his dad demeaning him or demeaning his mother for any of her rare attempts to care for him. They lived in a small muggle village in Wales where he spent his time as a child. He was bitten too young to really remember what life was before he became a creature, but he knew that he had torn his family apart. His father, Lyall, carried so much anger with him- angry that his son was a monster, angry at the work that had to be done to protect them from him, angry at his wife for her lack of understanding. His mother was named Hope, something ironic. She was muggle born and out of her depths trying to reconcile a werewolf son. She was a tearful woman, always floating around glassy eyed, seeming lost in thought or worry, hardly engaging in life at all. Remus used to think it was like living with a ghost before he came to see that the actual ghosts were much more lively. Remus was sure that the only reason his father had not reported him to the ministry immediately was for fear of Hope’s hysteria. There were moments where it seemed she made truly valiant attempts to love him, but it was impossible to keep the charade up for long and it only served to piss off Lyall.
He stared at his reflection in the mirror of the dark dormitory bathroom and saw each scar stand out grotesquely on his skin, it was a miracle that every person who saw him didn’t instantly see him for what he was. He felt a sinking in his stomach, in his bones. He was tired of the weight always pulling him down and the energy it took to fight against it. His body was buzzing with a sense of urgency, a need to get out of his own head, out of his body for a second.
•
That night when Sirius padded across the dorm floor, Remus couldn’t fight the fondness that ran through him. Despite his inebriation, or maybe even more so because of it, he wanted Sirius to be near to him.
“Rems”
He let him slide into bed next to him without a second thought.
“What’s wrong, Moony?”
Perhaps he should have thought for a second, because of course Sirius wasn’t here just to be beside him, he didn’t crave closeness with Remus like Remus did for him. He was here out of obligation, a need to ensure that his friend was okay once again. Remus was lost to the firewhiskey and weed clouding his head, he was sure he wasn’t masking his disappointment at the question very well this time. Why was it that his friends insisted he bitch and moan? Remus was fine, he was always fine, he just needed to get away from himself every now and again and tried to afford his friends that same pleasure.