Pure Sinners

Remus’s heartbeat was echoing through his skull. 

It was his fault. 

Everything was his fault.

It was his fault his mum had died, it was his fault he was deformed, it was his fault Lily got hurt. He was a curse, a jinx.

Something was wrong with him - he was ruining everything. 

He gripped the doorknob in his sweaty hand, turning it quickly as he slipped inside. His room was bare with only a few piles of dirty laundry and books decorating the floor. Quickly kicking said decorations out of his way he slipped down to the floor. 

He needed it. 

 Reaching out toward his bed, he heard a knock on his door. He stood quickly, a snarl forming on his face as he prepared to curse Sirius to another universe.

As his eyes landed on the ghostly form at his door Remus felt his anger thaw slightly.

“Lily? i thought you were asleep” his voice was shaky and he hoped his guilt wasn’t written across his face.

“What happened?” She asked. Her voice was horse and her eyes were underlined in black.

“Nothing.” Remus’s voice was harsh and he winced as it reached his ears. “I-it’s fine Lily why don’t you go back to bed?” He said as she crossed the threshold.

“Sirius left. He took James with him” Her voice was soft, fragile as she moved towards him.

 Remus felt his heartbeat slow a little. Sirius was gone. 

“What happened?” Lily asked again, a little more on edge. Remus wanted to laugh. She was worried about him, it was obvious. Her eyes darted about his face searching for an answer. 

 He didn’t deserve her, she was worried about him. Despite everything he had done - everything he hadn't.

He snapped his eyes shut as she raised her palm, the feeling of it against his jaw doing little to ease Remus’s tension. 

There was a rage in him. A burning ember catching his kindness - burning it down.

“It’s okay” She stepped closer and Remus didn’t dare open his eyes. “It’s okay” she told him as she traced her other hand over his chest. “I can take it” she repeated as he finally pulled his eyelids open. 

He looked at her face, searching for a fault in her gentle skin. He observed her slender neck, dipping his head to kiss the small scar running along one side. Lily didn't move, her body taught with tension. He breathed slowly, running his right hand along her spine until he found the nape of her neck. He flexed his hand, pulling it to the front of her throat.

He could feel her heartbeat under his fingertips. She was so breakable. Her body feeble like a bird.

He pictured her bones cracking under his hands. 

She trusted him. Remus knew that she allowed him to touch her like this, to use her as an outlet for the pain inside him.

The anger. 

He hated her for it. 

She should be smarter than this. 

She needed to be smarter. 

His fingers tightened against her skin, pushing into her windpipe. Lily didn't move, her face reddening as she shuddered. 

He pressed harder, watching as her eyes bulged, bug-like out of her skull. He waited, watching as her reflexes kicked in - her hand rising to claw at his own.

Remus let her go. 

She pitched forward, gasping for air. 

Remus felt something stir within him, a sick sense of satisfaction. The beast in his head roared for blood. 

Lily looked up, her eyes wide and bloodshot. 

She smiled, and Remus slapped her. He hit her again, a little harder than before. The force snapping Lily’s face back to his own. Pain flashed in her eyes as her nerves reverberated with the action. She tensed and Remus watched as she fought the urge to push him away. 

She should. 

They both knew it. 

She doesn’t.

He watched as she gripped her emotions tightly, smothering them and hiding them deep inside. Her hands fisted behind her back. 

Remus hit her in the stomach, a rush of air hitting his ear as Lily fought to stay upright. He hit her again watching intently as she opened her legs slightly wider, her weight pressing fully into the floor.  

It was the blood that brought him back. Nothing really, just a small stream from Lily’s left nostril. She was on the floor, looking up at him from where he’d been sat above her, pinning her arms above her head with one hand, as the other created a series of purpling bruises about her neck and shoulders. 

The tears came quickly after that, rushing through his anger like a tsunami. They skated down his face, splashing Lily’s collarbone as he buried his face in her shoulder.

His hand released hers, rubbing at his eyes as she stroked circles above his spine. “It’s okay, you’re okay,” she said softly, one hand cupping his head as his tears soaked through her thin sleep shirt. 

Remus forced himself to look at her, at the damage he had inflicted. 

The pain he kept causing. 

She was looking at him, smiling despite the tear tracks on her face. She was breathing and her hand had moved to hold his. His body stilled as he looked at her, at the way her freckles danced across her nose, disappearing into the reddened skin. 

He looked at the blood again. War evolved inside him as he questioned his sanity. It scared him how he could hurt her like this, how she let him. 

His gaze wandered to the space between her breasts where he knew the scar was. Evidence that Remus had seen her blood before, that he had healed her instead of hurt. 

If Remus ever saw Pettigrew again, he would kill him. 

“Sorry,” he croaked through chapped lips. Lilt ignored him as she ran her fingers through his hair. 

He’d run his fingers through her hair the same way; The night she got the scar, the night Peter left. Remus pushed out the memories of the way her shaking body. He tried to forget the way it had felt in his hands as he tried to force the blood back inside her body. 

The memory made him angry, but Remus was beginning to think all his memories did that.

She had refused to speak his name after. 

He remembered they said they’d talk about it. 

That they hadn’t. 

Remus forgot the rest of the conversation, recalling only the rage it birthed. The way he could no longer hide it under his skin - the way his mother had taught him.

‘Where’s my little monster’

He watched the door to his room close behind her before he moved. 

Swinging his bare legs off his bed he walked towards his window. Opening it slowly and pulling the plastic bag into the room. 

The plastic taunted him, calling him names, beckoning him for a taste.

Remus closed his eyes. 

He’d done too much today, all of him raw. 

He pulled some pills from the bag, pushing the rest back out onto the ledge before he lost his nerve. 

The pills weren't great, a sordid assortment he’d stolen from Sirius a couple of days ago. There were a few left, ten or so pills in a rainbow of colour.

Remus took them all, swallowing them down without pause.

He lay naked on the floor of his bedroom for a while. He didn’t know how long exactly. Time passed differently when you were high.  Remus supposed everything passed differently when you were high. Nothing was real, the colours duller and sounds a little more distant. Life was still happening but it was softer, a little more dreamlike. The birds were still singing, ships were still passing but they didn’t notice you. 

No one noticed you, they skirted around you, smiling above your head. You had to make a show of it, of course, nodding along and muttering the odd phrase but that was easy. 

It was easy to be high. So much easier than it was to be sober.

Remus stared at the ceiling, piecing shapes together in the paint. He was so removed from it all - There were no emotions when he was high, nothing in his memory but the softly spoken words of his mother.  

Remus closed his eyes, listening to his mother call through the house. 

“Where my little monster?” Her voice was palpable, dancing above Remus.

I'm here Mum. 

I'm right here. 

“What does my little monster want?” He couldn’t see her, not yet, but her voice sounded closer somehow. It moved with the ceiling, from one ear, to the other.

Blood

The monster wants blood.

Eventually, Remus rose to his feet, glancing quickly at the setting sun. He pulled on his sweatpants and a white hoodie before gazing at himself in the mirror. His face was still there - though he couldn’t feel it. His mouth was angled up slightly in a secretive sort of smile.  His eyes were bloodshot but not overtly.

He deemed himself acceptable.

 He walked purposefully towards the kitchen humming to himself softly. Sirius and James were all there, and suddenly the sight of them together wasn't strange. James was cooking something, talking softly to Sirius. Who was sat at the kitchen table on a fourth chair; The mustard colour clashed horribly with everything in the kitchen but Remus let the anger pass him by. He smiled, eyes absorbing every ounce of Sirius Black. 

“Remus” Sirius’s voice was loud, bouncing around the room on a beam of sunlight.

He sat beside him, pulling his chair a little close to Sirius as he spoke, “Hey Rem about this morning..” Sirius began, stopped by a waving hand Remus found was his own.

 “Don’t worry about it” he said carefully pronouncing every word. 

Sirius looked confused but relieved, deciding to accept Remus’s easy forgiveness. 

They spoke softly whilst they ate. James was a shit cook and the meal was awful, though Remus ate it all. He wasn’t sure what they had spoken about but he watched the colour of the words, nodding along every now and then.

Remus slept well that night, lost in a dream he couldn't remember

Remus awoke in a cold sweat. His whole body felt as though it were made of stone. He tried to lift his heavy eyes, blinking quickly at the light flooding the room. Where was he? He lent up on his quaking elbows as he smacked his lips together. His mouth was dry. Where was his water? What time was it? 

The confusion would pass soon - it always did when the drugs finally left his system. 

He sometimes thought he could feel it evaporating through his pores, taking every ounce of peace and happiness Remus had with it. 

He stood - slower than he’d intended. He frowned he should be feeling better than this - his tolerance had gone to shit but he had been sensible about what he was taking lately. Remus sighed as he left his room and walked towards the bathroom at the end of the hall. Lily hadn’t realised he was using again and as long as he was smart she wouldn’t clock on for another month or so. 

Since his overdose, he had been more careful. 

He hadn’t mixed his pills, or taken more than he needed and he hadn’t taken heroin since. He still kept a stash in the apartment but he hadn’t used it - and he wouldn’t.

It was only there because he hadn’t had the chance to throw it away yet - yes, that was why the small baggie remained. Not because he needed it, or even that he wanted it - simply because he couldn’t throw it away. If he did Lily would see it and assume he relapsed - she would be so disappointed in him, he knew she wouldn’t believe him if he told her the truth. 

She had always been so kind to him about his… sickness.

Remus hated the word, but he hated the other words more. 

User - seemed too soft. 

Addict - sounded too intense. 

Smack head - his father's favourite endearment for his only son. 

Junkie - Remus supposed this might be the most accurate one. 

Yes, he was a junkie, searching for the next fix.

He thought of it constantly - where he could get it, how he would pay for it and most of all he thought about how he would take it.

Mostly Remus shot up -  but he wasn’t fussy. He had been once, ensuring all his needles were clean and that his supply was pure. The further he got from his last dose the less Remus cared. Although he preferred injecting straight into his veins, Remus often smoked instead. It was less visible and he could often hide it from Lily for a longer time, but it wasn’t as strong and it took longer for the high to kick in. When he smoked Remus had more time to regret his actions, to hate himself - so if he was out of tar, Remus would snort it. 

Remus didn’t like snorting stuff - he was bad at it. 

Back in his uni days, his classmates had laughed at him for his clumsy hands and harsh breaths.

When he snorted heroin, it was usually impure. The Ghosts struggled to sell straight powder to all their ‘dependents’ and often cut it with cocaine. Speedballing was always a gamble, both substances putting a significant strain on the body. Remus often spent his short few seconds of clarity wondering if this would be the time it killed him, like it killed Frank, like Alice? Then the drugs would take effect and Remus would wonder why he was ever worried. 

For a while he tried Coke on its own, hoping it would make him feel like it did that first time. It didn’t. He didn’t enjoy coke, the drug sent him into day long spirals of hyperactivity, followed by a plummeting depression that turned his heart rate into a jackhammer.

Remus avoided coke as much as he could.

Though he knew Sirius favoured it. Though of course, Sirius assumed Remus was unaware of his drug usage.

Remus rolled his eyes, Sirius truly was oblivious.

He shook his head softly. No, that wasn’t it.

Sirius wasn’t oblivious, not by any means. He was, however, an optimist. He liked to see the best in everyone and assumed that secrets dissolved as soon as he declared someone a friend. He could see Remus empty the needle into his vein and still wouldn’t believe Remus was using unless Remus told him so.

And if Remus told him the truth now, he’d have to tell him everything. 

He’d have to tell him how his sobriety hasn’t been as steady as the man thought. He’d have to confess to Lily's role in his lie and how he had begged her not to tell him. And worse of all he’d have to tell Sirius why he hadn’t wanted him to know. 

Remus’s infatuation with Sirius wasn’t news to anyone - Or at least he assumed it wasn’t. He had never been very subtle about his lingering eyes or wandering hands.

 Remus would find any excuse to be near Sirius. Whenever they shared a bed Remus would always end up next to him, they sat together on the sofa and their breakfast chairs were opposite each other. Remus almost shuddered at the thought of his own blatancy as he opened his wardrobe.

 Lily knew.

Remus knew she did, despite her never saying anything on the topic, which Remus was grateful for as he did not want to speak on it either. He could feel her eyes on him whenever his hand would linger too long on Sirius’s own, he could feel the guilt in them as they met his own.

He knew he would never stand a chance with a boy like Sirius. 

Sirius who’s hair fell effortlessly into perfect ringlets. Sirius whose eyes looked like molten silver, whose pink lips froze in an arrogant smirk, that Remus wanted nothing more than to press his chapped ones against.  

Remus was not the kind of person boys like Sirius looked at, let alone a guy he’d be interested in. He was tall sure, but his back was hunched and his frame lanky. His hands where calloused and his fingers crooked and angular from one too many breaks. His face was long and thin, leading Remus to wonder often wonder if perhaps he could have been pretty without his scars. 

He pulled on his jeans as he avoided looking in the mirror opposite him. It wasn’t that he hated the scars.

‘it wasn’t’ he repeated out loud as though this would make it true. He just hated that others could see the scars. He hated that he couldn’t hide them. He hated that Sirius knew why he had them, and more than anything, he hated that they destroyed the thing his mother had loved most about him. 

Remus took a sharp breath.

The anger was sharp, as was the sadness.

When he arrived at the kitchen, he saw something he couldn’t possibly have predicted. Lily was sitting on the new chair, looking as though she were seconds away from murder with a bright pink party hat on her head. Sirius was bent over, clutching his stomach, laughing. He looked as though he were about to say something, but every time he opened his mouth only laughter emerged. His hand was outstretched, pointing towards the other side of the table. Remus’s eyes traced the path over his muscled shoulders and down his arm - pointing him towards James, or at least Remus assumed it was James because where a face should be, the man was frantically swiping at what looked like cake.

Remus's head spun with confusion. His eyes trying to piece together the scene despite the sudden dizzying tilt of his stomach.

It took 7 seconds for Remus’s brain to connect the very obvious dots front of him, however, it only took 3 seconds for his mouth to open. 

“What’s going on?” He asked dumbly and three things happened at once. 

3

James managed to swipe icing off his face enough so that Remus could recognise him.

4

Sirius managed to stop laughing and stand up straight.

5

 And the smile that had appeared on Lily's face when she saw him disappeared completely.

6

“You forgot” Lily stated in a voice so void of emotion Remus was convinced a robot had said it instead. 

Remus spoke quickly “Forgot what?” He asked the redhead. 

7

The world righted itself. Pieces slotted into place as Remus registered the words on Lily's party hat.

“Fuck”

The words ‘It’s my birthday’ written in bold white text might as well have been ‘Remus Lupin, you big fucking loser’. 

“Lily..” He began but she interrupted him quickly. “It’s fine..” She rose from the chair quickly and began speaking faster “I didn’t even want to do this shit today….I told him it was stupid but Sirius convinced me…he said you were all in on it..should have known….It was stupid…I didn’t even…I shouldn’t have…I'm just..I’ll just go…” Remus watched as the pink hat flew into the black bin by the front door - the girl not even pausing for breath. “I’ve..Riddle wanted to…meeting..” The words were cut off abruptly by the door slamming behind her. 

The silence in the room was oppressive. Remus could feel it pressing down upon them all. He wondered how long it would take for Sirius to snap. 

1

2

3

4

5…

“What the fuck!” Came a very angry voice, but as Remus looked at Sirius he realised it was not his friend who spoke. 

James was foaming at the mouth. His eyes were narrowed and his face red. Remus noted absently that it was free of icing - except for one small spot behind his ear.

“What was that?…”  he spoke quickly not waiting for Remus’s response. Which was good because Remus had none. “We spoke about this yesterday…”

Remus cringed, staring at the messy-haired boy as he waved his finger towards Remus's hunched form. He couldn’t hear a word the man said as he paced the kitchen floor. Remus stared at the boy, seeing everything he hadn’t cared to before.

 His hair wasn’t black as Remus had thought and was more of a deep brown. The left side of his nose was crooked, right where it met his brow bone.  He had a birthmark on his left forearm, Remus found it looked a lot like Australia.

 “Fuck this!” James’s voice echoed throughout the room, punctuated by the slamming of the front door as he hurried after the birthday girl. 

Remus curled his fists, pressing his nails into the bloody crescents already lining his palms. It was okay - he was okay. Lily would come back soon and he could explain… what would he explain? What could he tell her that wouldn’t unravel his lies? why would he have forgotten her birthday - a day he knew she hated, a day he had tried to make her celebrate for years - what could make him forget that? The answer was clear and she would see it if she stopped to think. 

Remus thought he had a few hours before she realised. She was always a little less focused on her birthday. A cough to his right made Remus realise he had more urgent explanations to give. 

When his eyes met Sirius’s he flinched inwardly, the warm pools of silver looked darker, more volatile. It reminded Remus of a powder he’d been offered earlier that year ‘grey death’ the dealer had called it - He’d said no, something about the dealer's green eyes making him think of Lily. But now staring into Sirius’s eyes he felt as though the drug ran through his system sending his heart into overdrive and stealing the air from his lungs.

 “You forgot?” Sirius asked and Remus was surprised by the softness in his voice. Remus shrugged trying for unconcerned as he spoke “I just woke up, my brain is not working yet…she gonna be okay?”

He could tell by the softening of Sirius’s shoulders he hadn’t sounded as carefree as he had hoped. “Yeh, she’ll be fine. She always is” Sirius said with all the faith in the world and not for the first time Remus wanted to punch him in his sanguine face. Instead of allowing his violence to take root Remus spoke gently as he followed Sirius into the sitting room. 

“Is there anything we can do to fix the mess I just made?” He asked Sirius as he watched his fingers tug on onyx strands. Sirius smiled as he shoved his hair into a bun at the crown of his head. Sirius merely winked at him “Have patience” he said, "she'll come around". 

Remus thought he had very good patience, proven by the fact he did not wipe the smug look of Sirius’s face with his lips.