Remus doesn’t feel like he will ever feel this type of tiredness again. It’s the kind that weighs down on his bones, seeps down to his core and eats at it until there’s nothing of him left.
The numbness doesn’t help. He doesn’t feel sad, or in pain. Just tired.
Like he needs the kind of nap you just don’t wake up from.
Henry thinks the same, he know this.
Remus first met Henry about 3 months after lily and James died, he’d been nice then, walking Remus home from the bar.
That was fake. Everything was fake. The hot chocolate, back rubs and shoulders to cry into.
If only he saw the eye rolls Henry sent his way. Or the annoyed scoffs.
Henry had sandy blond hair what fell just past his shoulders, brown eyes and roughy callous skin that was pale and ghostly white.
Remus though he look ethereal when he fist saw them, fiddling with his rings at the bar, biting his lip bloody.
Know he knows better. Know body can look that good and be that kind.
He doesn’t really care anymore. Every bruise or scratch. Every cut or scar.
It’s just numb, like he’s underwater or sitting in the back of his own mind. Like someone else is controlling his body.
He doesn’t mind anymore.
The wolf sighs as he lifts a cigarette to his lips. Sucking breathy and exhaling a puff of smoke into the warm air.
It’s mid June and sweltering, heat waves passing through the uk what feels like every week.
Remus hoped his depression was session. He hoped that once the sun came out a little more. Once the fringed air became warm again he’d feel better. Whole again.
It ever came.
Now it’s been 8 months since lily and James died. It feels like it’s been years. Remus feels ancient, like he’s 122 and not just 22.
It’s been 1 month since he left Henry. The only hallway in his house feels empty. The kitchen feels bare without Henry’s food, the living room cold.
The presents of Henry still lingers sometimes. Remus once read in a book that once there was an angry man in your house, there will always be an angry man in your house.
Remus prays this isn’t true.
It’s been a year since the potters died.
Remus can’t get the image of Harry’s baby face out of his thought and nightmares. Sometimes, if he’s super lucky, he will get a good dream.
It’s always the same, lily is cooking something in the kitchen. The smell of delicious food wafts through the hallway.
(The same hallway Henry walked through)
James is sitting on the sofa, flicking through the daily profit, occasionally glancing down and waving and Harry who is on the floor.
He’s on his tummy, tanned skin pressing into a soft baby blanket gifted from Alice. His little head is looking around, giggling and pointing at things around the room.
Padfood is on the side next to Harry. He’s wearing the leather jacket Remus can’t take out of the cupboard, shirt unbuttoned and tattoos on show.
Remus is standing the the doorway. His shoulder hurts and so does his left hip.
But he would go through anything to watch this a second longer.
Harry points and babbles at him, giggling a sound that sounded suspiciously like ‘moony’ and alerts James and Sirius that he’s home.
Sirius springs up, shouting his name and placing a kiss to his lips.
James doesn’t reach him. No matter how Much Remus reaches back.
Those dreams are the worst.
It’s been 2 years since the potters died.
The numbness doesn’t go away.
He can take the jacket out of the cubed now.
It’s been 13 years since the first war.
Remus’s hips flare up in pain as he walks, his knees threaten to buckle out from under him. There’s a stinging on his inner left wrist. He ignores it.
He ignores every things these days.
It’s been 13 years since the potters died.
It’s been 13 years since his best friends died.
And it wasn’t Sirius’s fault. It was never Sirius’s fault.
Really, Remus should have known. Just like he should have taken his potion. Or he should have taken Harry in as a baby. Of the fact he should never have dated Henry or fallen in love with Sirius fucking black.
He wants to go home. He wants to sleep and wake up in that shitty apartment. A faceless lily cooking some mystery dish that he doesn’t remember anymore.
James doesn’t have no face. It’s just Harry’s now, wide green eyes and lighting scar on his head. It digs the stab of grief deeper into his soul.
Sirius looks the same as ever. Just more crazy and more… like Bellatrix. Remus has started dodging the kiss that Bella/sirius throughs at him.
Or maybe he just wants the ace of tiredness to go away.
He is every age he has ever been, blood dripping down his arm and empty apology’s on his lips. He feels childish yet so, so old.
And maybe that’s the point of it. To let time pass around you and not live it. Not take part in anything. Everything changes.
The numbness stays though. The bone deep tiredness that makes he doubt he’ll ever feel any other emotion.
He will not get better and he knows it.