The Runaway

“OF ALL OF THE STUPID, ILL CONCEIVED, ILL PLANNED STUNTS YOU COULD HAVE EVER PULLED THIS NEARLY TAKES THE CAKE, SEV!”

Remus watched Severus hold the phone a couple of inches away from his ear, letting Lily yell at him without a word of defense for himself. Every once in a while he would open his mouth to respond to a very shrill “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?” only to be cut off on another tirade. 

He had moved inside with Severus to sit at the table with his mom, who was smiling in her mug.

“Isn’t it nice that his friend cares so much about him?” She whispered. Remus had a doubt that Lily was very caring at that moment, but from the fond smile creeping on Severus’s face he knew that her yelling was a good one. 

Remus discovered that he really liked Severus’s smile. It was soft and shy, as though he couldn’t remember how to really smile. Whenever he did smile big, he always tried to hid it behind a hand. Remus would catch those smiles when Severus talked to his mom. He wanted him to smile more. To smile all of the time.

It was his eyes that were his tell, Remus found. His eyes would change in brightness depending on his mood. The darker the color, the more upset his was. The light would catch his iris just right when he was happy. Once, when they were standing outside at the bus station, the sun came in from the side of his eyes and Remus saw that his eye color was the darkest shade of brown he had ever seen. Truly close to obsidian when the light shined through its structure.

Remus didn’t know why that scene alone, Severus standing there asking him a question that he doesn’t remember now with the sun illuminating his irises, made his heart stutter and his lungs forget how to breathe.

Maybe it was because he finally realized in that moment that Severus was healthy and on his way to being happy. Maybe it showed Remus that Severus was more than just Snape.

He was knocked out of his staring contest with his Memory Severus when Reality Severus spoke up for the first time in a few minutes.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t call or write or go to you first. I was just…” He glanced at Remus and his mom before sighing, “I was scared. I don’t know of what, just scared. I’m staying at the Lupin’s until school starts up.” A pause. “I’m not entirely sure, but I know where I can find that information and it isn’t here. Yes. Yes, I know.” He shifted his stance and Remus found his gazed quickly landing on Severus’s hips. They weren’t worryingly thin anymore. They were still very slender, but they had more fat on them now. That was good. That was healthy.

His mom cleared her throat next to him. Looking her way to see if she was alright, he was greeted by an arched eyebrow and expectant look. He tilted his head in a question. Did she need something? Did she ask him a question?

“I don’t know, Lily. That’s not for me to say.” Severus interrupted the staring contest by asking his mom a question. “Lily is asking if she can come see me if her parents allow it.” He looked as though he was about to say he didn’t need her to, but his mom beat Severus to it.

“Of course she can! I can talk to her parents right now if she’d like me to.” She smiled as Severus brow developed the crinkle it made when he was confused.

Nodding, he turned back to the phone to relay the message. Remus looked back to his mom, “How do you think she got our number?”

“She told me James told her Severus was staying with us, so perhaps with him?” She took a sip of her tea. “He likes her a lot, doesn’t he? That James.”

Oh yes, Remus thought. James was obsessed with Lily Evans. He would do everything for her. If only he didn’t act like a total arse whenever she and Severus were with each other.

“Hope, her mother wants to speak to you.” Severus sounded as though he didn’t want to say anything, but the insistence of the woman on the phone made him. Remus’ mom, smiling, stood up and took the phone, going over questions and concerns.

Severus walked over to the table, drumming his fingers in a jittery manner on the surface. He only ever did that when he was excited about something. Remus leaned on the table to talk lowly to him.

“It must be pretty exciting to see your friend during the summer, before school?” He watched as Severus paused his fingers and looked his way. The nod he gave was shy, as if trying to hide the energy waiting to burst through the motion.

“Ah, yes. That- that is if she is allowed to come here. Or if we go to London. Or…whatever.” Severus moved his hands from the table top to his shirt, fiddling with the ends. Remus couldn’t help the smile that came with watching him. 

“But…” Severus spoke up again, calling Remus’s eyes to glide from his long fingers to his deep eyes, “what if Potter comes with her?” 

The question was said with worry, not with suggestion. It took a minute for Remus to understand why he was asking the question in the first place, on top of wondering why he would worry. Of course it made sense once his brain actually thought about it at all and not honing in on the fact that Severus seemed to be developing freckles on his cheek bones.

“I could probably mention that I’ve already seen James this summer. He and I can meet up again when we get our things for school.” He saw Severus relax slightly, but still shifted nervously. 

The conversation reminded Remus that just because he and Severus were getting on, didn’t mean that the other two would. The thought made him slump his shoulders a bit. He wanted James and Sirius to see that Severus was actually a pretty normal person, instead of the dark wizard wannabe they painted him as.

He especially wanted Sirius to apologize. To the both of them.

Which reminded him of another thing…

“Uhm, Sev-“ He lingered on the ‘v’ in thought, causing the other boy to whip his gaze back to Remus. “-erus?” Those dark eyes narrowed a bit, but he nodded for Remus to continue.

“I was wondering if we could…you know?” He glanced at his mother, still on the phone and writing things down. “Chat about the-uh- shopping incident? Thing?” Godric and Jesus could he even talk today?

“What shopping incident?” Was he really going to make him say it?

“At Olly’s? That thing that happened..?” His mom was getting wind chimes in the next store over, knowing that Olly would take care of Severus. She had no idea what happened, and he really didn’t want her to find out now. Luckily, realization dawned on Severus’s face, and he nodded towards the sun room.

Once they were squared away, Remus standing awkwardly in front of the couch while Severus leaned against his work table, the really hard part started. Remus shuffled on his feet, looking everywhere but Severus. His anxious fingers found a loose thread on his sleeve and had all but torn it clean off. The silence went on for what felt like hours until the other boy snapped it away.

“Well? You wanted to talk about it, so here we are. Standing around to talk about it, so spit it out.” He crossed his arms, and Remus couldn’t help but watch the muscle contort in his biceps at the movement. Focus, you moron.

“I wanted to apologize.” Each word was ripped out slowly from the tightness in his chest.

A new silence stretched now. It was one Severus perfected in controlling. Calculating, assessing. The kind of silence that demanded no interruption as he decided whether or not he would give you the time of day. Remus was familiar with it in the form of Severus giving it to Sirius right before being at the end of a prank. He had never been on the end of one himself, and he was finding out very quickly that he didn’t like it.

He was beginning to fidget with his sleeve again when Severus spoke up. “I first thought that you were going to try and grovel about a particular school year, but since it’s about Olly’s store…” he looked to the garden as if to find what to say there in the rose bushes. “I have to admit, I’m not entirely sure what you’re going to be apologizing about.”

Remus blinked. “I…well that is, I. At the. Store.” He wanted someone to just punch him. Not only was this nerve wracking, it was becoming embarrassing. Surely Severus knew what happened? He read the whole textbook on that year’s DADA course surely? 

Glancing back at Severus from where his gaze was at the floor, Remus found that the boy himself looked two stutters away from punching him out of his stupor himself. 

One deep, harrowing breath and Remus let it out.

“I’m very sorry that I scent marked you without your express consent. You were in my clothes and it was so close to the full moon and Moony just…did it and I know that doesn’t excuse what happened. I truly am very, very sorry and it won’t happen again.”

Oh, by every star in the sky, Remus wanted to look away. To scramble the breathless ramble of an apology to the wall behind the other boy. But Severus, cruel and dark and mysterious and breathtakingly captivating Severus, demanded in that silent gaze that he look directly at him. And Remus, foolish and weak despite his House traits, was all but helpless to such demands. He stared at Severus with so much anxiety that he just wanted to curl in on himself or beg that he just do something. Yell at him, hit him even, to just break the oppressive atmosphere that began to grow the second they walked into the sunroom. 

Severus took a breath, soft and thoughtful, and Remus held his own.

The knock on the glass door made the both of them flinch. Hope was there, holding a small piece of paper with a gentle smile. “I’m so sorry for interrupting, my dears, but I just wanted to let you know that I spoke with her mother and have it all settled. Lily is going to come on down with her family in a week and a half. I’ll start getting the house ready for guests, okay?” When they both nodded, she nodded herself and gently closed the door again. Leaving her only son to the mercy of the one person he had come to crave approval.