January 10th, 2045
The air smelled of smoke and decay as they got closer to wherever it was Lily was leading them, a reminder of the world that had crumbled around them. Remus adjusted the strap of his backpack against his still sore back, the weight of his supplies digging into his shoulder. He glanced ahead at his two closest friends, his only friends now, who stood at the edge of the cracked road, their expressions a mix of sadness and quiet resolve.
"You sure about this?" Remus asked, his voice low but heavy with concern. He knew they were sure, it was him that wasn't. Which only upset him so much because it only really affected him, Remus was the one going off to fight, Lily and Mary would be hiding away in an old warehouse studying safely.
"Yeah. James knows the city much better and Sirius can fight better than us. We'll check in with you every week." Lily nodded, though it sounded like she was deciding in the moment.
Mary stepped closer, her eyes filled with something that looked like fear. "It’s not just about speed, Remus. We aren't fighters and you need all the protection you can get. We need it. This is something that we should have done a long time ago, Aliya had suggested we break off from the Hyde journey long before... before. We were in denial about splitting up but we know it's the better thing to do. Just... watch your back, okay?"
Remus didn’t respond as they had reached the bunker. He guessed based on the fact that Lily had stopped in front of it. They were still strangers to him. James, Remus gathered, was the ringleader as he gestured for Remus to enter, talking as if friends. He introduced a short boy who lay across his cot with a vacant look called Peter and a boy with dark curls and silver eyes. Sirius. He finally looked up at Remus' face but kept his uncomfortable expression. He held a bat in one hand by his side and a record in the other. Queen. James finally silenced and Remus caught the bridge of Bohemian Rhapsody playing from somewhere on the ground across the room.
James waved him further in, a lopsided grin on his face that didn’t quite reach his eyes. "Lily, good to see you again. You ready, or waiting for a written invitation?" She laughed and he pulled her in for a hug.
Remus loosened his backpack and stepped forward, each step pulling him further from Lily and Mary. He stopped a few feet away from James, sizing him up. "Let’s just get this over with," Remus muttered.
Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Friendly, isn’t he?"
"Leave it," James said, shrugging. "We’ve got bigger problems than his attitude. City’s swarming, and we’ve got a long way to go before sundown."
Remus glanced back one last time, catching Mary's worried expression and Lily's reluctant nod. Lily latched onto him one last time and he forced himself to look away and fell into step with James' group. The tension was palpable, the silence broken only by the thump of a tennis ball against the concrete.
Sirius finished moving the belongings in his hand to a backpack and tossed it beside the door. James stacked the remaining bags beside them, marking off a few spots on the map before putting that down as well.
"I'll cook the rest of yesterday's hunt for dinner." Peter offered.
James nodded though Remus saw how quickly his neutral demenor turned sickly. "We leave right after."
Sirius took a seat at the table in the center of the room with his eyes fixed on the radio that sat in front of him. James sighed as he sat across from him and ran a hand through his curls. Sirius kicked the third chair out and nodded to Remus. He turned away at first until he dropped his backpack down at the door and came back to the table. He stared down at the wood doing nothing more than appreciating the silence. As the strange scent of meat filled the bunker, James tried to make small talk. "So, you and Lily, friends or is there something more there that she never told me about?"
Remus ignored him, keeping his focus on the floor ahead. Sirius snorted, shaking his head. "Guess we’re skipping the getting-to-know-you part. Fine by me."
Peter dragged a stool over and placed the deer before them. They ate in silence again until Peter tossed the plates into the wash basin and the others collected their luggage.
Gravel crunched between their shoes and Remus tried not to look up at the pink-orange sunset in front of him and tried even harder to not think about how it was Aliya's exact favorite color.
"So," James started. "Lils kept it brief. Why do you need to get to the center so bad?"
"Research, cures, all that jazz." he mumbled in response.
"So you specifically are just such a valuable researcher that the six month long outbreak will end if you show up? You are too valuable for your friends to travel with you but not for three guys you've never met to bring you there?" Sirius asked rhetorically.
Remus glared at him. "Well, by that logic, why are you guys going then?"
"Yeah," Peter added bitterly. "Why are we going, James?"
James didn't respond and Remus tried to ignore the way he had grown increasingly green over the last few hours. Sirius rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Just don’t slow us down."
Again, Remus didn’t reply. He didn’t want to know them, didn’t want to learn their quirks or their histories. It was easier that way. He was here to get to the city, save the world or whatever, and then he was gone. No connections. No complications.
As the group passed the skeletal remains of a uptown shopping center, the distant growls of the infected reached their ears. Remus instinctively reached for his knife, his pulse quickening.
"Stay close," James said, his voice low. "And keep quiet." They ducked behind an overturned car as a pack of zombies shuffled into view. Remus' breath caught in his throat as the creatures stumbled closer, their guttural snarls sending shivers down his spine. The last time he'd heard those, not in his nightmares, was followed by seeing Aliya cover her ears to block out the sound of her own flesh being eaten.
Peter tapped Remus on the shoulder, motioning for him to follow. Remus hesitated, glancing at the others. For a moment, he considered running, abandoning this group of strangers and heading back to Lily and Mary. But he knew it wasn’t an option. Not yet.
So he moved, sticking close to Peter as they slipped past the infected. His chest burned with adrenaline, his mind racing with doubts and regrets. He didn’t trust these people, and he didn’t want to. But in the apocalypse, survival wasn’t about trust. It was about necessity. And for now, Remus needed them as much as they needed him.
-
The dim light of the moon filtered through the cracked and filthy windows, casting long, jagged shadows across the concrete floor. Peter had insisted on entering an old building instead of laying across the field with sleeping bags. Remus would have argued he slept outside everyday for the last four months, but that would be if he cared. The group had settled into a corner of the vast, empty warehouse, choosing it for the relative safety of its sturdy walls and few points of entry. Remus sat cross-legged on his sleeping bag, fiddling to replace the batteries of a broken flashlight as the silence between them grew heavier by the second.
Across from him, Sirius leaned against the wall, sharpening his knife with deliberate, grating strokes that echoed through the space. James and Peter worked quietly in the background, unrolling their sleeping bags and setting up makeshift pillows from their packs. The occasional shuffle of fabric was the only sound beyond Sirius' blade.
“So,” Remus began, forcing a brightness into his tone that felt alien even to himself. “This is, uh... cozy, right?”
No one responded. Remus' forced smile faltered, and his eyes darted to Peter, who let out a dry chuckle without looking up. “Sure. Cozy. If you’re into broken glass and the smell of rat piss.”
James paused his organizing and looked over. “Look, I know this isn’t ideal, but we’re all in this together. We might as well try to... I don’t know, make it bearable?”
Sirius' hand stopped mid-stroke, and he finally looked up, his expression hard. “Make it bearable? You think I want to be here? Dragging some random kid along because your old buddy said he could be useful?”
Remus' fists clenched. “I’m not some random kid. I know how to handle myself.”
“Do you?” Sirius shot back, his voice dripping with disdain. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re dead weight until you prove otherwise.”
James stood abruptly, tossing his bag to the side. “Black, knock it off. You’re being a dick.”
“Yeah, well, someone needs to say it,” Sirius snapped, glaring at Remus. “We don’t have time to play nice. He’s either with us or in the way.”
The words hit like a slap, and Remus felt a hot flush rise to his face. He stood, his voice shaking with anger. “I didn’t ask to be here, okay? I left my friends, the only people I have left, because we thought this was the best chance for all of us. That includes you. So maybe stop treating me like I’m the problem and start looking in the damn mirror.”
The tension in the room was suffocating. Sirius and Remus stared each other down, neither willing to break first. Peter sighed heavily, muttering something under his breath as he turned away, while James focused on adjusting the corner of his sleeping bag.
-
The room was quiet, hours later when Remus finally tried to slip under covers and try to sleep. However, the faint sound of rustling came from across the room first, and he thought it was just one of the others shifting in their sleep, until he heard the muffled retching.
His ears perked up, and he turned his head toward the source. It was James, hunched over in the corner by the waste bucket, his breathing ragged. Remus hesitated, his first instinct to roll over and ignore it. He wasn’t here to make friends. He wasn’t here to care. But something in him wouldn’t let it go.
With a groan, he swung his legs out of the makeshift bed, the cold floor shocking through his socks. He padded over to James, who startled and looked up, his face pale and drawn.
"Hey," Remus whispered, crouching down. "You okay?"
"I dunno," James shook his head, his voice hoarse. "Stomach’s been off for weeks... think it might be something with the meat we hunt, usually deer. Didn’t want to bother anyone because we didn't really have another option for food."
Remus sighed, already rummaging through shelves for water. "Well, congratulations. You bothered me. Here, sip this."
James hesitated but took the bottle, his trembling hands brushing against Remus'. Remus stayed there, kneeling awkwardly, waiting as James drank.
"You should’ve said something earlier," Remus muttered, trying to keep his voice neutral. "You didn't have to eat more of it before we left if you knew that would happen."
James gave a weak smile. "Didn’t think you’d care."
"Yeah, well..." Remus stood, running a hand through his hair. "Maybe I don’t. But Sirius does, you guys are like brothers."
James nodded, looking genuinely grateful. "Well, Sirius has got one of those. I spend more of my time comforting him over the fact that he won't return any of his attempts to get in contact than being his brother."
Remus nodded silently. "I get that, Lily's always got something to say about her sister from before the outbreak. Think she got taken out early on though,"
James agreed with his guess even though he didn't know much about Lily's recent siutaion. "So are you guys close friends or..."
"Yeah, yeah," Remus replied easily. "Knew her when we were little and happened to be with her and stay with her during the infection so we're just best friends. Think she's mentioned you before though, did you guys date?" James nodded without any more to add to the subject and finally stood from his spot. Remus helped him back to his bed, making sure he was settled before heading to his own set up.
As Remus climbed back under the covers, he noticed Sirius sitting up in his sleeping bag. Their eyes met in the dim light, and for a moment, neither said anything.
"Didn’t think you had it in you," Sirius said softly, his tone lacking its usual sarcasm.
Remus rolled his eyes as he finally rested down against the hard ground. He turned over and had his back face Sirius even though he could still feel him sitting up. "Don’t make a big deal out of it."
"Too late." Sirius smirked faintly, pulling himself away from his previous position of leaning back against the wall. He started to slide back into the bag but stopped halfway between sitting up and laying down. A beat of silence passed after the rustling died out, and Remus felt the weight of Sirius' gaze linger again. "Hey," Sirius said after a pause, his voice quieter this time. "You’re not as bad as I thought."
Remus turned his head slightly, just enough to catch Sirius' softened expression in the moonlight. For once, there was no teasing, no hostility, just a rare moment of vulnerability. "Yeah," Remus muttered, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "You’re not so bad yourself."
Sirius chuckled, his voice low and warm, and Remus felt a strange flicker in his chest. As their eyes locked for a moment longer, the space between them seemed smaller, the tension lighter. Neither said anything more, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable this time.
Remus turned back over to face him, his heart beating a little faster as he closed his eyes. For the first time in a long while, he didn’t feel so alone.
-
The sun rose reluctantly, shrouded in a haze of ash and clouds, casting a pale, sickly light over the ruined landscape. The group trudged down a crumbling hill, the silence broken only by the distant calls of crows and the crunch of their boots on the crumbling asphalt. Remus walked beside Peter, trying to ignore the biting wind and the gnawing tension from the night before with Sirius. He was also trying to ignore the pain shooting through his entire body after the terrible night's sleep.
He glanced over at Sirius, who was beside James a few feet up. Sirius hadn't even looked at Remus this morning, and while that didn't matter to him, he wasn't going to make friends, it still weirdly bothered him. But he tried to focus on the others, his curiosity bubbling over despite himself. “You seem... quieter than the others,” he said, Peter glanced over at him. “Sirius is all bark and James, well, he’s got this unshakable hero thing going on. You’re different.”
Peter shrugged, adjusting the strap of his pack. “Guess I don’t have much to say.”
Remus smirked faintly. “Or you just don’t want to say it.” Peter shot him a sidelong glance but didn’t answer. Remus pressed on, his voice lighter, trying to chip away at the walls. He didn't realize how much he would miss Lily and Mary's conversation topics from their hikes. “So... are you excited? I mean, to fight. To actually do something instead of just surviving?”
Peter's expression darkened, and he shook his head. “No. It wasn't my choice."
The bluntness of the answer caught Remus off guard. “I get that, more than you'll ever really know."
Peter smiled lightly at the bond even though he hadn't expected Remus to say anything to him, even something mean. But Remus knew he was the weakest of the group, he had been before and could always tell that sort of thing. He knew that he couldn't be as bitter as he was with James or Sirius with him.
-
They stopped in a patch of grass a while later and James started to mark off more thing on his map. Sirius fidgeted with his radio again. Peter just fidgeted. Remus sat down and pulled out a notebook and pen.
"Are we hunting tonight?" Peter asked later. "For dinner?"
"Um, I guess-" James started despite instantly loosing color in his face. Remus met his eyes and shook his head, hoping James would catch what he was suggesting. James returned his look by shaking his own head with panicked eyes.
"We took stuff from the warehouse, canned food. Let's make that instead." Remus sighed. James mouthed a 'thank you' but Remus pretended he hadn't seen it. He wasn't here to help any of them, they weren't his friends. But surely people help strangers all of the time as well? He wasn't doing anything that they wouldn't do for him. At least, he hoped so. Peter nodded without seeing any of the interaction and took over preparing the food as he always had.
"Remus." James started. "Where'd you live before this?"
Remus didn't answer for a moment. Then he looked up from his journal. "I didn't. We went everywhere, mostly towards the city but from the west instead."
"He meant before you fucking idiot." Sirius snapped from a couple yards away. "Where did you live before the apocolypse?"
Remus glared right back at him and started to speak slowly, tone clipped. "We. Went. Everywhere. Last time I lived in the same place for more than two weeks I was fifteen and lived in a boys group home."
"We went to school with Lily around that time, who were you travelling with?" James pressed on.
"Met a girl who lived in a girl's orphanage not far from mine and we ran away together. Met some others and travelled around until I met Lily. Then the outbreak happened and we broke apart from a few of the others we had been with and started towards the city, for my sake." Remus said carefully. He tried his best to answer without giving away anything too personal. But he knew that James would have follow-up questions and not stop until Remus either snapped and insulted him or told him the truth.
Peter set the food down in front of them and Sirius came over.
"What are you writing?" Peter asked when Remus hadn't put the notebook down even to eat.
"Sort of a day in the life but more about what I'm thinking about, I guess." Remus replied. "Mostly writing it for Lily and Mary's research and for my friend to read since I can't exactly see her anymore."
"If you were travelling the whole time why didn't you just travel to her?" Peter asked.
"I did. For a while. Until a few days ago, actually." Remus mumbled, setting his fork down for good. The pain that filled his body started to pool around his heart at that memories and mentioning of Aliya.
"But she didn't come with Lily and Mary to say goodbye?"
"We... had already had our goodbye. It was a lot harder than the one with Lily and Mary, they had been parting with me for the last couple days." Remus struggled to find the word. Though it was obvious they stil had more questions, no one continued to clarify.
"Will you reconnect with her after you finish your business in the city?" James asked. Remus shook his head, unable to bring himself to say the words. "No? I thought, I mean, I figured you had something really important to do with your work or whatever... we’re all in this to make it to the center, to try and fix... something. Isn’t that what this is about? So once it's fixed you can just go back to her?”
Remus exhaled sharply. “Not for me.”
Sirius frowned. “Then why are you here? You don’t exactly strike me as the type to just go along with things.”
"I... I didn't want to come," Remus hesitated before admiting, voice barely above a whisper. He kept his gaze fixed on the horizon over the rocky hill to keep his composure in front of the others. “I mean, not really. But I didn’t have a choice.”
He got up with that and grabbed his radio, Lily and Mary would be trying the frequency soon for a weekly check-in. Sirius followed him aroumd the side of the hill with his own radio still in his hand.
"Would you stop doing that?" Sirius rolled his eyes irritably. "You put out little bits of information like it's common knowledge that we should have known and then word it in a way that gives us no actual clarity on the subject. Either tell us or don't, but stop fucking with us."
Remus' jaw tensed. He stopped walking and returned his line of sight to the boy behind. He glanced over the side of the hill to confirm his wonder of if they were out of James and Peter's earshot. Remus stepped closer from his previously casual leaning stance and kept his position firm. “I don't know you guys. At all. So excuse me for not wanting to pour out my secrets just because we're forced to go on this mission together.
“Right," Sirius replied sarcastically. "We're the worst people you could have gotten stuck with. That's why one of your only friends didn't even come with you to say goodbye and you got sent away from your other friends. You think your so important just because you know the first thing about outbreaks. We've been living in one too, if you could stop thinking about yourself for a moment and see you aren't the only person in the world. That's it, right? You're going to tell the Hyde scientists a little bit of information they've probably ruled out a couple of months ago and this whole entire life-threatening mission will be for nothing. Tell me that's not it."
"No,” Remus said, his voice cracking slightly. “That’s not it. It’s... it’s because I’m immune.”
The words hit like a thunderclap, freezing Sirius in his track. Remus turned sharply, his fist already clenched at his side as if expecting a threat over his reveal. Sirius' eyes widened, his usual composure cracking.
“What?” he breathed, the shock evident in his tone.
“I’m immune,” Remus repeated, his voice firmer this time. “I got bit a little after the start. My best friends, they were with me. They all saw it happen. A few of them... they panicked. Thought I’d turn. I tried to tell them it wasn't going to happen, but...”
Remus' voice faltered, and he looked down at the ground, kicking a rock. “None of them listened. I didn’t even get to prove I was okay before they ran off. I haven’t seen them since. Except... Aliya.” His smiled sadly over her name. "She was there, but she trusted me. Stayed with me for the next six months. A little after we started with Lily and Mary, eventually going to the Hyde when Aliya thought of an idea on how I could use my immunity to save everyone."
"If it was her idea... why isn't she taking you?"
"She did... as much as she could. She wasn't immune. I could only protect her for so long, I should have-" Remus sucked a shaky breath in. "I should have been able to protect her for-forever, really."
The silence that followed was deafening. Sirius stepped closer to Remus, expression softening. “Remus, it's not your fault-” he began, but Remus held up a hand, stopping him.
“Don’t,” he said. “I don’t need pity. I just... I didn’t want to go to the center because I don't know what will happen. They’ll want to use me. Study me. Or worse. And if they don’t...” He trailed off, looking at Sirius. "I don't like to not know what's going to happen, I don't like surprises."
Sirius swallowed hard, his earlier assumptions crumbling. He wanted to say something, anything, but words failed him. He broke the silence with a scoff, though it lacked his usual edge. “Well, that’s one hell of a secret to drop. You should’ve told us.”
“And then what?” Remus snapped. “You’d trust me? Doubt it.”
Instead of countering the statement or even agreeing with it, Sirius chuckled a little. Remus looked up in shock before shaking his head and giggling at the situation. When Remus spoke to Lily that night, he at least didn't have to lie about it going well.