Chapter 7
“Moons, I’m a vampire.” The words rang in Remus’s ears. That was Sirius’s explanation for everything. For leaving Remus’s ass out in the cold for three. Fucking. Years. That he was a supernatural creature so it was all okay and reasonable now.
“You’re a vampire?” Remus hissed the words back to him. Grit them out really because suddenly it all made sense. Not the Sirius leaving him part, that was still cruel no matter how you sliced it. Possibly even worse now that he knew the reason why. But why Sirius had consistently been so cold. The paleness, and sure Sirius had always been pale, but no one was that pale. No one who wasn’t a vampire that is.
“I wouldn’t lie to you Re,” Sirius’s voice sounded small now, and Sirius was making himself small too, bundling himself in Remus’s cardigan like a blanket. Remus rose from the table rather abruptly. Scoffed in disbelief.
“That’s not the fucking problem Sirius!” His voice came out louder than he intended it, just barely controlled. Not yet loud enough to make Sirius wince.
“But-” Sirius seemed like he wanted to argue that it was but Remus already had no tolerance for it.
“You left me because you’re a vampire. Merlin, you are such an idiot. I’m a fucking werewolf, Sirius.” Remus tried to quell the worst of his rage. Everything Sirius had put him through- Remus had always thought there was some grand reason for it all. Some justifiable ones. But it turns out there was none at all. Sirius had put him through everything he had, broken Remus’s heart, turned him into a shell of a person who drank and fought and cried over Sirius’s leather jacket for nothing. Because he was a goddamn vampire and he thought that would change anything.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding-” Remus chuckled about as humorously as one could get and Sirius shook his head like he never would. So earnestly and sweetly but this was the asshole who had left him in the dust just because he sucked blood now. Like Remus couldn’t fucking handle that. Like Remus wasn’t just as goddamn bad.
“No, I would have hurt you-” Sirius tried to explain, but once again Remus refused to accept it. Refused to let Sirius go down his rabbit hole of self hatred and use it as some kind of excuse for leaving him. Especially considering the amount of times Remus had promised that douchebag—his wonderful, wonderful star—that he would love him and stay with him no matter what. That nothing he could do would ever make Remus love him less. And yet Sirius had forgotten all of that and discarded it in the blink of an eye. It irritated Remus to no end.
“I HAVE HURT YOU SIRIUS!” Remus screamed, finally broke after being pushed and pushed closer to the edge for days. Sirius froze, eyes wide, thick with emotion, and glued to him, jaw open in shock. And then Remus felt like shit. Felt absolutely horrible because he had just yelled at Sirius and he had promised him that he would never do that again. “I- sorry Pads, really, I’m sorry.” Remus lowered his voice significantly, wanted to move closer to Sirius to comfort him but was far too angry to, besides, he couldn’t fucking coddle Sirius every time someone raised their voice at him. But part of him wanted to, to hold his star so sweetly and make sure that no one ever hurt him again.
Remus shoved that part of him deep into the back of his mind, because none of those thoughts were helpful right now, and refocused on continuing what he was saying.
“Sixth year, Sirius. I landed you in the hospital wing for a good couple of weeks because I attacked you during a full. Or do you not remember that?” Remus tried his best to keep his voice down, but it was right on the verge of yelling and he knew it. “And did you just conveniently forget how you forgave me afterwards? Or the countless. Fucking. Times. I told you that I would love you through thick and thin? Did they just slip your mind Sirius? Did you really think that I wouldn’t forgive you like you did me if the positions were reversed? Or did it just not occur to you that I meant all that shit I said to you?” Remus hissed, and yeah, he was at his breaking point. Couldn’t stand looking at Sirius’s heartbroken and taken aback face anymore and how he was so close to tears. And part of Remus wanted to push him to tears just to be vicious. Just to break Sirius like he had broken him. It took the last of his restraint to grab his car keys instead.
“Moons-” Sirius got out so brokenly and Remus knew he had to leave when he had absolutely no pity for him.
“No, Sirius. I’m going for a drive, there’s food if you get hungry, just- don’t fucking follow me.” Remus got out tersely but coherently then turned around and walked out of the door, leaving Sirius alone and probably about to burst into tears, with Remus doing his best to convince himself that he couldn’t care any less that he had.
. . .
Hogwarts, Seventh Year :
“Pads, baby, your hair,” Remus was reading, Sirius sitting on one knee and his hair, his beautiful silky hair, kept getting in his fucking face. Kept getting in his fucking face because Sirius was leaning across him and unknowingly pushing it right in Remus’s eyes while he was trying to read. And Remus said unknowingly but really this had happened three times, four now, so Sirius had to be at least a little aware of it.
Sirius only hummed in acknowledgement, not moving his head or hair at all—instead shifting to be even more on top of him—so Remus pulled him by the waist and readjusted him to be a little more out of the way. Sirius pouted, whined,
“Moons,” but Remus could tell he’d liked it. That was probably why Sirius had kept doing it in the first place, to get himself manhandled a bit.
“You wanna stay on my lap, you stay still, love. No more climbing all over me.”
“But I like climbing all over you, Re,” Sirius argued half heartedly as he shifted ever so slightly in his white floor length dress and matching white opera gloves. Why Sirius was in a floor length dress and opera gloves in the middle of a Saturday morning to go absolutely nowhere and do absolutely nothing (besides sit on Remus’s lap and get his hair in his face) was beyond him, but Sirius had said he was trying to embody Jennifer from ‘Jennifer’s Body’ so Remus had shrugged and gone with it.
“But I’m trying to read, stay still or get down. Those are the rules.” Remus clarified. Sirius faux pouted, but agreed, keeping his hair out of Remus’s face like he could’ve been doing the whole time but had deliberately chosen not to—determined to get exponentially closer to Remus instead. And Remus would be lying if he said he didn’t find that at least a little charming.
“Mm, see how easy that was?” He squeezed Sirius’s waist with his hand as a light congratulations for sitting still. But his book was getting boring and he was almost near the end of it anyway so Remus skimmed the last few pages before setting it down. He hummed disapprovingly at the ending. It was lazy and unsubstantial.
“Bad ending?” Sirius guessed, twirling his hair with his finger and placing his elbow on Remus’s shoulder. Remus went ahead and pulled him closer now that he wasn’t trying to read and hummed in agreement.
“Quite. Wiggle if you want now, love. I’m not reading anymore.” Sirius put his nose close to Remus’s neck like he was trying to smell him then settled more comfortably against his chest, sitting more fully on Remus’s lap now, like he had wanted.
“Thanks Moons, but I can’t wiggle too much in this dress. Don’t wanna tear it. Otherwise I wouldn’t be a good Jennifer, and I’m already missing the blood.”
“Blood?” Remus questioned, not having known the reference when Sirius first explained it to him, but now finding himself vaguely interested.
“Mm, yeah, she killed a bunch of people,” Sirius explained, completely unfazed by the fact that he was emulating a murderer. A murderer who killed people in ball gowns, apparently.
“Sorry, she killed people? In that dress?” Remus felt the need to clarify. Sirius just hummed noncommittally, pulled up his opera gloves so they weren’t slipping.
“They were boys, Re, they didn’t count,” Remus chuckled at that. Sirius may have been forgetting one key detail.
“We’re boys, Sirius.” He reminded him gently. But Sirius put a very dramatic hand to his chest and gasped, appalled.
“How dare you, Moons.” Sirius scooted a whole inch away from Remus in offense. “I am Jennifer from Jennifer’s body. I am a teenage girl who wears velvet pink sweatsuits with hearts on them and checks my lipgloss after killing the quarterback of the football team. You may be a boy, but I certainly am not. Not while I’m in this dress at least.”
“I’m so sorry Jennifer,” Remus chuckled at his star’s antics. “May I just ask that you take pity enough not to kill me? A lowly boy?” Sirius gasped again, but this time far less dramatically.
“I’d never kill you Moons,” Sirius flung his arms around Remus’s neck, once again appalled. “Love you too much for that.”
Remus thought it was cute just how endearing Sirius could be, even at the most unexpected times. He wrapped his arms around his boyfriend—or girlfriend perhaps, in the moment—in return.
“Love you too baby. And I appreciate you not killing me in that pretty little dress of yours.”
. . .
Present Day:
The more Remus drove, through town and then a little past it—anger slowly seeping out of him with each intersection he passed—the more he felt like an absolute asshole for blowing up then leaving Sirius alone like he had. Sirius who he had promised not to raise his voice at. Sirius who was alone right now and probably thinking that Remus hated him, because Remus had very much given him that impression. His star was alone, scared, and vulnerable after telling Remus his deepest and darkest secret. One that he had been so ashamed of, so much so that he had felt the need to leave Remus to somehow protect him from that part of Sirius. And sure, it had all been for nothing, and was quite ridiculous given their history together, but it likely hadn’t seemed that way to Sirius.
Sirius, who carried so much guilt around day to day, was always so worried that he would be a bother or a burden. Who believed himself already to be too much for Remus. Which of course, was never true. Sirius was the opposite of a burden, never for a second had been ‘too much’ for Remus, and he had told him as much. But Remus knew that deep down Sirius didn’t always believe him when he did. That he wanted to, but he had been through so much, been told the opposite so many times, that he couldn’t. So it would’ve made sense to Sirius. Sirius would’ve thought of him leaving as some sort of necessity, as something he had to do to protect those he loved from something he was clearly scared of and didn’t know if he could control. And Sirius hadn’t said all of that, but Remus knew him well enough to figure it out on his own.
It still hurt that Sirius had questioned the strength of their relationship, of Remus’s love to such a severe extent. It still hurt that he’d left him, but a lot less now that he knew that Sirius hadn’t wanted to. Remus replayed his star’s words in his head, the ones that were slowly healing a good deal of his Sirius-inflicted wounds:
‘It was never anything you did. Never because I didn’t love you.’
Never because Sirius didn’t love him. That right there got Remus to take a sharp U-turn and drive back home. He had cooled down enough that he wasn’t worried about hurting Sirius without meaning to. What he was worried about however, was Sirius. His poor star was probably in tears by now thinking Remus was never coming back—because he always did think the worst when he was upset—and Remus had left him there, showing no trace of empathy and barely any hint that he would actually follow through on his word to love him through his predicament.
Remus had once again been the cause of that brilliant light leaving Sirius’s eyes. And he hated himself for that. Sincerely and to his core, but there was no reason that Sirius should have to continue to suffer for it.
On his way home he made a plan for the rest of the day that was sure to cheer Sirius up. To make him smile again, because Remus had robbed enough of those from him.
. . .
When Remus returned it was to Sirius stress cleaning the kitchen countertops, eyes looking red and raw from crying. It had been a few hours, so Remus figured whatever breakdown he had had was mostly over with and controlled by now, but Remus would still make sure to keep his voice soft and low when he spoke to him.
“M-Moons-” Sirius startled a bit when he saw him. Remus shot him a gentle smile and waved his arm, gesturing for Sirius to follow him back out to the car.
“C’mon darling, I’m taking you shopping.”
“You-” Sirius still seemed to be a little shaken up, surprised that Remus had shown back up. “You don’t have to do that.” He tried to reason, but Remus simply shook his head in dismissal.
“I want to and I will. You’re gonna need your own clothes at some point, Pads, so let me get you some.”
“You’re- you’re not mad?” Sirius questioned, following him but warily. “And… you want to take me shopping?”
“Such a good job summing it up love,” and there Remus went with the inappropriate pet names, although he guessed they weren’t really inappropriate anymore. That was nice, Remus thought fleetingly, he could get Sirius all flustered again if he wanted to. “Now c’mon, I want to get there before the stores start to close. I know how damn long you take in the changing rooms.”
“Because I wanna know how I can style everything before I buy it! It makes sense Moons! That way you don’t end up with clothes you don’t even know how to make outfits out of!” Sirius passionately defended. Remus grinned, thought got him. Now that Sirius was distracted he would forget all about his earlier worries. It wasn’t always this easy with Sirius, and honestly Remus had expected him to fight him more on it, but he had hooked him early on and he intended on keeping it that way.
“Get in the car then, so you can spend all the time there you want.” Remus got out to the car and opened the passenger side door for Sirius. His mother had raised him to be a gentleman after all.
Sirius stopped in front of it, and looked to be in deep thought before he spoke up again.
“You shouldn’t-” Sirius looked like he was on the precipice of protesting again, but seemed not to have the energy for it. “I can’t talk you out of this?” He started over.
“I’m afraid it’s already settled, love,” Remus got close enough to him to properly touch him and gently tilted his chin up. If Sirius really didn’t want to go then he wouldn’t make him but he knew that Sirius needed some gentle guidance to allow himself to be taken care of.
It took a second, Sirius whimpering ever so slightly at his touch before letting out a light sigh and relenting.
“Okay, Moons. I guess I can’t really go on wearing your sweaters forever.” Sirius let himself be guided to the car, sat down, and Remus went around the other side to do the same.
“It’s okay if you still want to wear them after you have more of your own,” Remus said once inside. He hoped that Sirius would, that he would keep wanting to wear Remus’s sweaters, because Remus certainly loved seeing him in them.
“I- thank you,” Sirius played with the hem of the cardigan he was wearing— Remus’s—a bit bashfully. “They make me feel safe.” He admitted somewhat quietly, possibly hoping that Remus wouldn’t hear it. But he had and it made him smile, fulfilled him completely to know that he could provide that for his star.
“I’m glad they make you feel that way darling.” Remus rested his hand on Sirius’s thigh as he pulled out of the driveway.