self destruction
remus woke up feeling nothing.
despite the conversation he had with regulus the week before, remus couldn’t seem to muster up the energy or the will to talk to mrs potter.
it didn’t matter though, because he wasn’t going to kill himself anyways , he just… thought about it a lot? and yeah well he did definitely want to die, but there’s no way he’d do it while he was over at the potters, after-all they had taken him in when no one had wanted him.. and well? it was a bit selfish of him wasn’t it? they had used their supplies to save his life after the moon so he could hardly waste their supplies by just ending up dead anyways?
after a while of hating himself, remus decided to haul himself out of the bed he shared with sirius, who had gotten up for breakfast while remus had pretended to be asleep for another few hours.
standing on wobbly legs, he tried to ignore the way his vision goes spotty as he drags himself into the bathroom across the hall.
he hadn’t showered for a few days, but he hadn’t really gotten out of bed other than to go to the toilet and smoke, so who could really blame him, standing for so long just felt like an impossible task.
but now he could really smell himself, and thought it was probably selfish to make sirius come near him when he was smelling this bad.
moving again on wobbly legs, he turned the hot water on, hesitating on the cold handle before deciding that maybe the heat would make him feel better, distract him from his own head.
resting his forehead against he wall, he waited for the water to head up, before he started to strip his clothes off.
he stood with his back to the mirror, he didn’t want to see what he looked like, didn’t want to look in the mirror and see his pale body and crisscrossing scars.
didn’t want to look in the mirror and see the eyes of the man who had destroyed his life.
discarding his clothes in the hamper, remus stepped under the hot spray, wincing at first at the heat before he realised how soothing it felt.
he put his face directly under the spray, letting his hair soak up the water for a moment before he felt dizzy again.
remus sank down to the ground, pulling his knees to his chest as the water pounded down on him,
he figured he probably looked rather pathetic and useless right now, and with a pang of anxiety, he realises he’d been doing nothing around the house to thank the potters for taking him in.
he didn’t deserve to be here.
not at all.
how could he of been so stupid to think that his dad was being unfair to him
it was all true wasnt it?
he was just a lazy beast who deserved absolutely nothing.
and these tears?? the tears he hadn’t realised he had cried until now, they were selfish.
he should be greatful that they had saved his life, saved him from his own father.
yet it’s cruel that he has to be greatful for surviving anything at all.
several loud thuds break him out of his storm of self hatred and misery.
“re?! you okay in there?”
sirius.
sirius who had only known torture and abuse, distasteful glares and icey words, before he and his brother had escaped to the potters loving arms.
and yet? sirius gets out of bed, he helps with dinner and he cleans and he showers.
remus once again finds him disgusted with himself.
disgusted that he let himself burden someone who was already carrying so much.
he can’t even find it in his weak, weak body to call out a response, to not worry one of the only people that touches he had felt in a way that did not make his skin burn fiercely.
he reminds himself that he has never deserved those careful touches, that monsters don’t get careful touches.
“remus if you don’t answer me i’m gonna have to come in okay?”
he knew sirius was going to finally see just how pathetic he was. yet as his body ached on the shower floor, he couldn’t seem to find it in himself to care.
sirius knows empty.
he had known empty since he was not yet a child, empty rooms with only his cries to accompany him,
empty gestures filled with no love, only the cruel ache of his mothers need for her perfect reputation.
and as he grew? grew into the trauma filled boy he was, sirius knew the weight emptiness could take on one’s soul
he was familiar with the emptiness in remus’ eyes, as he had seen it before in the mirrors haunting reflection.
and sirius had known remus had always carried himself with a quiet sadness, sadness that pulled on his eyes when he was in pain, when he spoke of his mother.
though he doesn’t think it’s something that everyone noticed about remus.
yet with the love sirius holds for his boy, he thinks he could write a novel on the little things about remus that nobody but him could notice.
but this? this was different.
remus was self destructing and sirius was terrified.
he couldn’t lose his remus he couldn’t
and sirius knew remus needed help before he did somthing he couldn’t take back.
that’s why sirius was now frantically pounding at the bathroom door where remus was showering.
he waited a few moments after he spoke, until he unlocked the door with his wand, stepping in before closing the door behind him.
the room was like a sauna, so much steam radiating out of the shower, that sirius feels a little dizzy.
“moony?” he asks hesitantly, eyes landing on his boyfriends curled up form.
remus only blinks up at him, and sirius knows his brain is spiraling.
so, he quickly turns, grabbing a soft white towel from the cupboard, before reaching into the boiling water to turn the shower off
“hey love, let’s get you dry and back into bed yeah?” sirius murmured calmly, crouching down as he wrapped his boyfriend in the towel.
he tried not to suck in a breath at how red remus’ skin was, or how hot to the touch he seemed to be.
“i’m here, and i love you.. we’re going to figure this out okay?” sirius promised, frowning when remus shook his head softly.
“hm?” he murmured in question, rubbing remus’ back to try and towel him dry.
“nono m a monster” remus slurred, and sirius felt his heard crack at the words he hadn’t heard remus utter in years.
“merlin moons, you’re not a monster darling don’t say that” he fretted, hugging remus closer to himself as he tried to figure out what he was going to do.
suddenly, remus scrambled up, slurring out murmurs of “no no can’t can’t” as he tried to get away from his boyfriend.
sirius felt sick as he watched the way remus swayed on his feet and his stomach lurched as his boyfriends legs buckled from underneath him.
waking up for the second time that day, remus felt an immediate pool of dread settle in his stomach.
his head ached and he wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but by the look on mrs potters face as she sat by his bed, he knew it wasn’t good.
“remus sweetheart, can you sit up and drink this juice for me?” the older women asked him gently, and suddenly, remus recalled everything that had happened in the bathroom.
his lip trembled a little and he hated himself for it, stupid stupid stupid.
mrs potter had asked something of him though, and he has been horribly rude for sitting here pitying himself instead of following her directions.
and so he sits up slowly, arms trembling as he attempted to support his weight before he leant against the headboard, reaching a shaky hand out to grasp the cup of orange juice mrs potter had held out towards him.
remus gulped the juice down quickly, handing the cup back before his gaze flicked up to the roof, avoiding the disgusted look that he was sure mrs potter would have on her face,
how could she not when remus was acting so pitiful.
“remus dear, i think you and i need to talk about what’s going on”
oh merlin she’s going to tell me to leave, i knew i had overstayed my welcome.
of course they don’t want a monster inside their home. he’s been so selfish to be around them when he’s such a dangerous creature.
a tear streams down his cheek and remus squeezes his eyes shut, “i’ll be out of your hair as soon as possible, i’m sorry.” he chokes out.
to his surprise, mrs potter doesn’t ask him to be quicker, infact, she says somthing he could have never expected.
“you will do nothing of the sort!!” she speaks, sounding surprised.
remus opens his eyes in confusion as she carefully grabs his hand.
“you are my child remus, and you have been since the first day you came to visit. this is your home now.”
oh
no. stop it remus. you’re poison. don’t let yourself ruin them.
another tear steams down his face as he shakes his head harshly,
“i can’t i can’t, i ruin people mrs potter” he sobs, scrubbing harshly at his face as he looks her in the eyes
“first my mum- she did it because of me i know she did..”
he’d never told anyone that before.
he’d thought about it every moment of everyday but he’d never said it aloud.
mrs potter opened her mouth to speak but remus kept going.
“and then him. he- he wasn’t always so full of resentment.. i-i remember when i was small that he wasn’t, and i made him this way.”
some might think he couldn’t possibly remember that long ago, a time before he was bitten, but well- the memories you miss most of all never really seem to leave you.
mrs potter stays quiet for a moment, only squeezing his hand softly as he let himself cry
remus wonders why he could outrun his own bitterness for the world when his father couldn’t
“i’ve met a lot of angry men in my life..” she spoke eventually, and remus realised he had voiced those thoughts aloud.
“and i’ve found that a man that harbours as much anger as lyall has, will have always been an angry man” mrs potter finishes,
remus sits silent for a moment, mulling over what mrs potter had said.
he didn’t want to believe that it wasn’t his fault, because he knew deep down either way he didn’t deserve someone’s kindness.
“why are you helping me?” he ends up asking, because he just can’t understand why the potters would want to take him in.
merlin his own family didn’t even want him- why would they?
she smiled softly at him, a slow hand coming up to cup his scarred cheek.
looking him in the eyes, she spoke in a mere whisper.
“every child deserves to feel loved” mrs potter nods along with her own words.
“even the cursed, or the ones simply born with tragedy in their blood”
even the cursed
but- yes sirius and regulus had been born with the tragedy in their veins, but well….
“ but mrs potter, i wasn’t born into tragedy, i became it.”
despite his words, mrs potter smiles once more,
“you have never been a tragedy remus, only a child that deserved more than the deal he was given.”
oh
and so remus cries, he cries without all of the selfhatred, just tears upon tears for the person he could have been.
and eventually when they stop, does euphemia speak again,
“let’s get some food into alright? you passed out cause you haven’t been eating and i’m worried”
remus isn’t sure why, maybe it’s the way she cares enough to be worried or because he knows that meals have gotten hard again in a way he can’t help, but he feels himself spiral again.
tears flowing once more, but this time, mrs potter pulls him into a hug.
“you’re alright my boy, everything is going to be alright”
and maybe it will be.