Chapter 1
Remus’ first tattoo had been a mistake.
He was drunk, absolutely sloshed, at a party he didn’t even want to go to.
Like his father, Remus couldn’t quite seem to be able to pull himself away from a bottle. He loved how the warmth spread from his lips to his stomach, making the ghostly pains of his scars fade away with each sip.
He couldn’t quite recall how everything went down. He knew one of his friends’ had a tattoo machine, bought it off illegally or something. And, supposedly, there was no better activity in a party full of drunk, idiotic teenagers.
Apparently, a stumbling Remus had volunteered to be the first for a impromptu tattoo session.
It was a stupid, in the moment decision. All he wanted to feel was, perhaps, a different kind of pain from his ever aching scars, or the blinding agony of fresh new ones.
Even sillier, however, was his tattoo of choice.
The next morning, he sneaked back into his room through his window to not alert his father. He went for a shower and saw a red, puffy mark on his shoulder. He gasped in shock, as memories of the night were still blurry around the edges at best.
An outline of a wolf, with ugly teeth bared in fury. Remus stared at it, in shock. At the uneven lines, smudged corners and loopy eyes. It was so awful that he couldn’t help the giggle that escaped his lips. He wasn’t sure what made him ask for his biggest enemy to be tattooed across his shoulder, but Remus realized that he liked it. He enjoyed the burning sting around the drawing when he touched it, the way it almost drew away from the gnarly scars littered across his arm. The dark ink stood out from the pearly white lines and Remus found himself hooked.
Whenever somebody asked him what he wanted to do in life, Remus always shrugged it off waved the question away. He knew that, realistically, he couldn’t function in a normal society. His odd hours and mood swings would not be appreciated by any employer. Staying at a university, full time around other people, where he would always be a danger, seemed like something out his worst nightmares.
Remus knew, at the age of seven, that society didn’t want him. And if they knew the full truth, they’d be terrified of him.
So, whenever the topic of his future came up, he just imagined himself doing a few odd jobs here and there, barely scraping money together to live, breathe, keep himself safe and contained as to not injure anybody around him. Remus almost expected to be homeless.
But when he stared at the dark, puffy image on his arm, twisting to see it from all possible angles in the mirror, he couldn’t help the excitement that coursed through him. It was new, unexplored territory. Something that had never crossed his mind. Something came into place, deep inside his brain, a clear and, admittedly, far fetched idea wormed itself into his mind and grew larger with every passing second.
Remus liked drawing from an early age. It was a good activity to keep his mind off of other things, relax and rewind after a full moon. His mother bought him his first set of crayons when he started showing interest by drawing with her pens at the age of six. He drew landscapes and animals, people and endless stars and universes he saw in astronomy books. Whenever Remus was upset, mother would hand him his crayons and let him be absorbed into a fantasy world of his own. From terrifying dragons to portraits of his little family, Remus had a imagination running at light speed.
Luckily, he never gave up on this hobby. The walls of his room were littered with drawings made in coal and granite, paintings in oil and acrylic laid in a large pile near the wardrobe. His school notebooks had more drawings than writing. His school bag was littered with stars and flowers. He drew them with fabric paint. His beat up converse was a never ending canvas, painted over and over until the paint cracked with each layer.
Remus was the artsy, weird kid with his nose in a book. He never really bothered to make others think otherwise. He enjoyed the small, protective bubble he’d built out of necessity. When he was little, he was a scrawny, timid child. Often the main target of abuse and mockery form his peers. Now, he had a few friends, was tall and looked intimidating enough to not be picked on. Remus did not fit into society’s standards by any means, but was desperate to carve out a place for himself somewhere in the midst of it.
Everything clicked into place up until that moment. He stood in the bathroom mirror and stared at his tattoo. Remus felt as though he, finally, found his purpose. Admittedly, the moment wasn’t as grand as he liked to remember it. But, the clarity that overcame him as he brushed ghostly fingers over his tattoo was relieving.
The months until his birthday, Remus threw himself headfirst into researching how to become a tattoo artist.
And so, every passing day he spent holed up in his room or at his desk at school, learning design and composition from books he borrowed. It was a grueling process, as he had always been guided by his emotions when drawing. Learning to make art that was anatomically correct, looked pleasing to the eye and had clean line art put Remus in an art block more often than not. But the accomplishment he felt as his portfolio filled up bit by bit beat any exhaustion or anxiety that creeped up his spine at the thought of being rejected.
The black folder he borrowed from his father’s office was filled with pages and pages of his best work. The lines were clean, colors vibrant and compelling, Remus just hoped that his designs and art style were good enough to attract a mentor.
Unexpectedly, on the night he turned eighteen, Remus was thrown out of his home.
In a daze, he quickly packed up, shouts of anger, wild accusations following his every move as he hopped around his room like a mad man. The whole thing was so out of the blue, terror coursed through his bones as he ran around his room, taking down the drawings on his walls, stuffing his whole life into a few bags. He didn’t have much. His father had no desire to give his bastard son much, besides a essentials that wouldn’t warrant a CPS visit. Any money Remus earned went towards his art and first aid kits that he always stocked up in his room. So, all in all, he didn’t have much to pack.
He ran down the stairs, shaking with fury. He knew that Lyall would kick him out sooner or later, but on the night of his birthday? He didn’t even have anywhere to go, for fuck’s sake. The school year wasn’t even finished.
“I have no need for a monster like you leeching off of me anymore.” His father sneered and spit on the pavement by Remus’ feet. His eyes flashed amber in irritation. Lyall Lupin, stinking of alcohol, flinched upon seeing his son’s gaze. He clutched the wand in his hand, knuckles going pearly white, and pointed it at the scarred teenager’s chest. Remus, seeing the clear threat, turned away from the door and collected his two duffle bags off the grass lawn. The front door smacked closed with force and Remus winced at the shrill ringing that the noise caused in his ears. He heard keys clicking and locking the house from the inside and thought, absentmindedly, that he had no need for his own pair anymore.
Remus stood outside on the sidewalk, braving the chilly March air with only jeans and a sweater.
Constellations he didn’t know the names of twinkled above his head in a way he thought to be mocking. They brightened the night sky, drawing his attention to the waxing gibbous moon hanging in the sky. Remus ran down a sweaty hand down his face and started the long journey to the nearest subway.
Without a home, just a few pounds to his name and no income, Remus knew he had to get a job, and quick. However, as the full moon closed in on him, he knew what his priorities were.
He found an abandoned were house on the outskirts of town to brave the night, and boarded it up to the best of his ability. With pieces of insulation he found around the building, he padded up the windows and the cracks under a multitude of doors. Whilst it was fairly far away from town, there were still people around. Under no circumstances should they hear his gnarly howls or bear witness to his gruesome form.
After wandering around, Remus found a garage door that opened up to huge shipping containers. With a grin, abandoning all other plans, that’s where Remus decided to stay for the night.
He picked a fairly sturdy container, emptied it of empty and half-full stinking boxes. It was small, smaller than the basement he spent most of his childhood locked up in. Whereas the room had a small window up top and a light overhead, the container was pitch black on the inside. The door could be locked and unlocked from both sides, which was good, as he would not be trapped after a transformation. The wolf wasn’t intelligent enough to work with locks.
Leaving his bags by the garage doors, hidden behind a few cardboard boxes, he relaxed. His things should be safe. Remus was fairly sure the place was abandoned, but.. one could never be too careful.
He left his clothes outside the container, leaving only his boxers on. After locking the door with all possible mechanisms, he sat on the metal flooring and waited for his will and freedom to be stripped away from him. The wolf was restless, Remus could feel it. It already felt trapped. He ran a hand down his shoulder, where the tattoo of a wolf was, to find some sort of comfort in the dark.
Remus always hated small spaces. They made him panic, remember memories he desperately wished away. But being contained during a full moon was inevitable, so he tried pushing away the dread building up in his stomach.
When the full moon rose, Remus could feel it all the way to his fingertips. His teeth gums hurt, hands and feet itched. His spine trembled in apprehension and a wolfish whine escaped from his throat.
Remus doubled over in pain, grunting and writhing on the harsh metal flooring. He pulled at his hair when he felt his hands grow with muscle and nails lengthen into claws. His spine wheezed and cracked in half in order to grow. Blood ran down his mouth from where his sharp fangs protruded from his gums, his existing teeth growing and sharpening. He whined and cried as his skull broke itself to change shape, grow narrower and longer from the snout. Fur sprouted from his skin, covering him in much needed warmth. Remus grew in size, becoming twice the size he was when human. He felt the moment when his brown eyes slit into amber ones and control was switched from him to the horrid monster that lived under his skin.
From that point on, Remus was a silent passenger, unaware of what was going on in the real world. He floated around the mental space where the wolf laid dormant during the month and curled into a fetal position, waiting for the wolf to wear itself out.
Pain wasn’t an oddity during the full moon. The monster craved freedom, the freshness of a hunt and grass beneath it’s feet. Remus, however, couldn’t give that to it. So, in order to satisfy it’s primal urgers, the werewolf often found another target to maul.
His body was a canvas of the monster’s anger. His cruelty was painted clearly across the scratches and wounds it would make. It would bite and tear at it’s skin, looking for the comfort of blood and cruelty in order to calm. It was a pity that Remus was it’s favorite plaything.
This night, however, seemed different. As agony clouded his mind, Remus could feel something odd deep inside his subconscious. The wolf was terrified. It gnawed and teared at it’s skin, ripped at muscle and hair to get away from the darkness of it’s metal enclosure. It was more aggressive than usual, craving release and blood with newfound vigor. It, as always, didn’t realize that the skin it bit and abused was his own, that the prey he chased in the dark was the body it borrowed. With a sickening crunch, the beast passed out and took Remus along.
Remus clearest memories were the day his mother died and what came after.
It was the middle of summer. That year Remus had turned eleven. Mother was sick, she had been for as long as he could remember. But she had been getting worse. She’d stop talking and just stare at the ceiling. Sometimes she didn’t talk at all. There were good days, of course, when she laughed and wrote and drew flowers around her sons scars. Nevertheless, for that whole summer, she was bed ridden and so frail that Remus was afraid to touch her, lest he injured her.
Most terrifying were the days when she didn’t wake up. Remus would sit by her bed and tell stories, read her the poems she wrote and scribble on any paper he found laying around her room. He’d wait and cry and scream at all the unfairness in the world. Then, he'd come back into the room and look at his mother. She was a pale figure, laid in a bed with pillows and a blanket that were too big for her.
1971, July 26th, leukemia took what was left of his mother.
His father raged. Angry at the disease, at muggle’s incompetence in treating it, at being unable to help her with his magic. Most of all, Remus thought, Lyall was angry at him. Remus was the one that got away, the one that got cured by being bitten and turned into a monster. The disease was genetic in mother’s side of the family.
The night after Hope Lupin’s death was the first time father hit him. It seemed like an in the moment decision, Remus wasn’t even sure when the thought came to father’s head. When father’s palm met his cheek in a harsh crack, the two of them stared at each other in shock. Lyall took a shaky step back, looking at his shaking hand with disgust.
Not willing to be hit again, Remus shot to his feet from where he fell on the floor and ran outside.
He nursed his swelling cheek and realized that with mother’s death, all warmth had vanished from his home.
He was left alone with a grieving man and a basement which left him with horrid scars that were out of place for a child.
The first thing Remus felt upon waking up was the searing pain in his thigh. And the gross stickiness of blood all over and under him.
The iron smell of his blood mixed with rusting metal from the container filled his keen, abused senses. Turning to the side, Remus promptly threw up.
Pain flashed in his thigh, and he doubled over in pain once trying to stand. All of his other scratches and injuries seemed to pale in comparison to the agonizing burning in his leg. It traveled from his hips to the end of his right leg. Remus regretted picking this location for a transformation immediately. He was in pitch darkness, blinded by pain and blood loss. His injuries stopped him from getting to the door to open its locks and get to his med kit.
He wanted to cry, scream and smash the whole world in the rage that consumed him. It fueled the pain and Remus winced, falling over into his blood once again.
With a cry, he rolled over on his back, wincing as he felt the gashes there scrape against the floor. He nursed his leg with trembling fingers, mind going numb from transformation exhaustion and the pain all over his body.
Hours must’ve passed as he laid there, trying to calm his breathing and put the blinding pain to the back of his mind. Remus had to leave, and to do that he needed to calm down and stand up.
Dragging himself to the left, he tried searching for a wall. Upon hitting it, he sighed in relief and used the dents in the metal to haul himself up. He pushed his chest against the wall, sighing as some of the tension left his throbbing leg. With no idea in which direction he should head for the exit, Remus decided to limp to the right. With a few curses and shouts, he reached the door. Luckily, the mechanisms weren’t all that complicated. He just needed to push a few sliding locks and break open a rusted over shed lock. With barely any strength left in his body, he pushed the door and it creaked like a weeping child.
Falling forward, Remus couldn’t catch himself in time to not fall onto his wounds. A strangled shout escaped his lips and he whimpered in pain. This was unbearable, what the hell happened?
Light shone through the high windows of the were house, letting Remus look himself over. Scratches and deep gashes of claws didn’t faze him anymore, but once he caught a look at his leg, he turned to the side and dry heaved.
The wolf took a bite out of his leg.