Chapter Three
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"It - it's about those rumours." Remus said, which made Sirius’ heart drop.
"They're not true, Moony." Sirius jumped straight in, his voice desperate and breaking.
"I know that." Remus said, putting his hand onto the smaller man's shoulder and turning around to face him. Their faces were inches away, their noses touching as Sirius felt his stress relieve slightly. That was all he had hoped for. "But - they have made me think."
Then, Sirius' stress returned, his eyebrows lowering. He felt his breathing hitch as he looked Remus in the eye. The taller, blonde Gryffindor was averting his eyes from meeting his – which was never a good sign. Sirius prided himself in being the only person that Remus could make eye contact with – it was the one thing that made him believe that their relationship was really, really special. Sirius had difficulty trusting people due to his past with his parents, so these small things meant a lot to him. When Remus refused to look him in the eye, he felt instant panic wave over his body: his brain and insecurities telling him that the boy had lost feelings for him. He swallowed his stress, nodding.
"Please - please don't say anything until I - until I have finished." Remus stammered over his words, as he usually did. He had a slight speech impediment and Sirius always thought it was sweet because it only came out when he was really stressed, or really uncomfortable. Naturally, he didn’t often witness it unless he had really stressed him out with one of his jokes or such.
Sirius agreed, nodding. He could feel his nerves becoming unbearably high.
"Do - do you promise not to?"
"I do." He nodded, again.
"Alright - I - I think that we should stop this." He signalled between the two of them, inviting Sirius to open his mouth in protest. Remus placed his finger to the other boy's mouth almost without hesitation. Sirius often did that to him when he was in a sensory overload, he would place his finger to Remus’ mouth and tell him to stop worrying, which would soothe him slightly. "You promised." He spoke. "You said you wouldn't speak." Sirius bit his lip, hard. That would be harder than he imagined, he thought. "I - I know that you love me, and I love you so much but - I can't give you what other people can. I don't think I ever can."
"What do you mean?" Sirius squeaked, breaking the promise instantly.
"These rumours - your - well, you're a normal boy and - and I'm not. I'm a werewolf, you know?" He shuffled, not wanting to complicate things by bringing up his neurodivergence. "And I - I can't give you what a normal partner can." Sirius squinted, his mind trying to comprehend what Remus was referring to. "You know what I mean."
But Sirius didn't. He didn't know what Remus meant. Because for one, Remus hadn’t told him about his autism so as far as he was concerned, he was just like everyone else. And two, he had never understood sex or the attraction that people physically felt towards other people. He had never wanted to, nor had the ability to. But he had also not explained that to anyone. He had been far too embarrassed to. He wanted to run away from this moment. He didn’t want to be here right now. He didn’t want to talk about this. It made him feel nauseas and he hated it. It was like being back at the Black household and being told he was a no-good piece of rubbish by his parents. Sirius had never known love. He had never been told that he was loved by anyone but Remus, so to hear that this love was soon to end, it hurt him deeply.
"Sex." Remus spat out. "I don't - I don't want you to see me like that." Remus cried, wiping his eyes. Sirius felt his heart sting as he watched as Remus shuffled into the corner of his bed, his eyes red and puffed up.
He was scared and scarred. Remus was afraid to even look at himself in the mirror without clothes on. He had never been able to love the way that he looked without clothes on, and he had no idea how he could ever expect anyone else to look at his pale, scarred body without feeling anything but pity for him. Nobody could ever love what they saw. He couldn’t even love himself; how could he expect anyone to love him?
"And - I know that I'm not an attractive person anyway." Sirius wanted to argue but bit his tongue, at a loss of words. Even though he wanted to tell Remus that he was perfect the way he was, he couldn’t find the words. And he wanted more than anything to respect the wishes of his boyfriend to stay quiet until he had finished. "And I know how much you probably want to - have intercourse. That's the normal thing, right? To want it. Right?" Again, Sirius wanted to laugh at his friend's innocence, but he found himself unable to. The lump in his throat had rendered him speechless. "James is forever talking about it and - you are always joking about it and I know that they're just jokes but I know that you want that. You're normal, after all." Remus wasn't even trying to stop himself anymore, the words were just falling from his mouth without much thought. That word – he hated it. ‘Normal’. He had always been told he was anything but: that weird kid, the one that was strange and abnormal. "It's normal to be - active in that way - at this age, right?"
Sirius swallowed. He wished it wasn't so hard for him to admit how he truly felt but he couldn't.
"I wish - I wish I could but - I can't." Remus cried. "I can't, I'm sorry."
Remus lifted the quilt over his head again, his eyes stinging still. Sirius felt nauseous at the thought of Remus feeling so uncomfortable around him. The taller Gryffindor began to rock back and forth, placing his hands to his ears and hitting himself.
"I - I just - I can't let you see me." Remus sobbed. "Not ever - and - and I completely understand if - if that means that you - you don't want to stay with me." He choked, his voice breaking. "I can't ever - I don't want - you wouldn't love me anymore."
"I don't want to see you without your clothes on anyway." Sirius said, without thinking about the implications of the words if they were taken the wrong way and - with it being Remus - of course they were going to be taken out of context.
Remus felt his heart break as he lifted the quilt over his head, continuing to hit himself in the head in an attempt to feel pain in any other way other than emotionally. He couldn’t contextualise what he was feeling, and it was causing him hurt like he had never felt before. He needed it to end. He already felt like an idiot but those words hurt more than he could have ever imagined, and this was a boy that had been through hell every month since he was five years old. He had never thought that anything could hurt more than the pain he felt after transforming monthly but this - this was worse than death.
Sirius shuffled closer and pulled the other wizard’s hands away from his head, holding them so Remus couldn’t continue to harm himself. Remus wriggled away from his hold and collapsed onto the floor in a heap.
"I didn't - I didn't mean it to come out like that." Sirius threw his hands up, his face dropping once he realised what he had said. "I didn't. I - I meant - I don't want that from you."
Remus was still shaking, his arms wrapping themselves tightly around his frail, scarred body. Sirius wanted to comfort him. He wanted to throw his arms around him and tell him that he didn't care about any of that, because he didn't. But he also didn't know how to tell him those things. Remus had stopped hitting himself now, and was instead sitting completely still, just staring out of the window in a desperate attempt to distract his mind from what was happening.
"Maybe we should end this." Remus cried, his voice cracking.
Sirius didn't let those words process in his mind, his natural instinct to just pretend that he hadn't heard them. He shook his head, biting his lip.
Remus wiped his nose, his tears staining his cheeks.
Neither of them dared to speak next. Sirius, being Sirius, just stared at the other boy - who was still sobbing but attempting to get his emotions in check.
His light hair fell innocently in front of his eyes, his cheekbones chiselled as his jaw clenched in a desperate attempt to hold in his sobs.
Sirius studied the expression on Remus' face. He was sure of himself, which made Sirius feel broken. Remus' eyes were red raw, his hand raised up to his face as he continued to wipe the tears that continued to fall. The auburn-haired boy had never felt so lost and Sirius wanted nothing more than to reassure him.
"No." He said, simply. He couldn't - again, being Sirius - think of anything else to say.
"What?" Remus looked up through glazed eyes.
"I said no." Sirius put his foot down. "This isn't over. I'm not - that's not supposed to happen. We're together, Moony."
Remus stayed quiet, his words getting caught in his throat.
Sirius felt his legs collapse slightly in on themselves as he crawled over to Remus, his arms throwing themselves around the taller man. Remus flinched, Sirius felt it but he was refusing to let go now.
He found himself at a loss of words, his mouth drier than a desert.
"I love you, Remus." Sirius' voice was small and broken as he whispered into Remus' ear. The words melted into the other boy’s ears before he threw his hands up in the air.
"You deserve someone that can - give you everything." He said, his hands shaking. "I - I'm a monster." He screamed. "And I don't - I don't deserve someone as good as you."
"Moony, we've been over this. You're - you're not a monster and I'm not a good man. You - you're all I want." Sirius begged, pleaded. “You’re not a monster.” He repeated himself, desperately trying to get that fact into his boyfriend’s head. “You are perfectly normal.”
There it was again, that word – ‘normal’. He winced, beginning to cry again.
“I’m not normal.” He said, plainly.
“Yes, you are, Moony.”
“I’m autistic.” He blurted out, making Sirius draw away from him. Although Remus knew Sirius didn’t know the meaning of the word, Remus still felt a twinge in his chest at seeing him pull away from him like that. He had had years of people pulling away from him because he was different but this hurt a lot more than any of those experiences.
“Wha – what does that mean?” Sirius cried. “I don’t understand.”
“It means – I am not normal, and I can't give you what you want, Sirius." Remus pushed Sirius' face away with his hand as Padfoot leant into a kiss. "Please, let me do this for you."
Sirius hated this. He hated not being able to explain himself. He knew he had to, and this would be the perfect time to, but he just couldn't find the words. Although he didn’t know what the term ‘autistic’ meant, he knew it took a lot for Remus to admit it to him.
"I love you, Pads, but I need to let you go." Remus sobbed.
"No - no, Moony, no."
"This is for the best." He nodded.
"Fuck! I don't want to have sex with you, Moony." Sirius screamed, his anger at himself transcending into his tone. Remus jumped slightly, his heart beating heavily in his chest. "Fuck."
"I'm sure Remus knows that-" Sirius heard James say from the door. He'd just entered the room and had no context and so resorted to his usual jester personality. James' eyes landed on the tear-stained streams that had scarred down both of the boys' faces, but he knew better than to question it. Not right now. It was evidently not a good time. He frowned as he got no laughter at his joke, smirking. "Come on - that was funny-"
"Piss off, Prongs!" Sirius yelled, taking James by surprise. Sirius never snapped at him. "Please." His voice softened, slightly. "I need to speak to Moony alone." Remus continued to cry.
James appreciated the sensitivity in his voice, and gave Remus a reassuring smile, who smiled back through his hurt eyes. He may not have known the context of the argument or the reason why Remus was upset, or Sirius angry but he didn't need to. He appreciated that his two friends evidently needed to sort whatever it was out alone, without him. And they would explain in their own time. He nodded, leaving the room, and whispering a quick 'Colloportus' spell so that they wouldn't be disturbed again, unless someone used the 'Alohamora' charm, but he kind of knew Peter wouldn’t be leaving his side.
"I - I don't want to sleep with you." Sirius repeated himself, restarting the conversation once James had left, softer this time. His arms fell to his side as he collapsed into a mess away from the bed, his knees smashing on the floor.
Remus slowly stood up, his eyes filled with a dazed darkness and his face plastered with a confused expression.
"Sirius?"
"I - I don't want to do this."
Remus shuffled forward, wiping his own eyes in order to comfort the other man, who had caved in on himself.
"Please - I don't want to, Moony." He sobbed, holding his face in his shaking hands. Remus frowned, his mind racing just as much as his heart was.
"I don't - Sirius, I'm not forcing you into anything and I - I don't understand. What's wrong?"
"I can't tell you." Sirius cried, his personality a shadow of his usual self. He was quaking and shivering, his spine was tingling and his eyes were stinging with salty tears that he couldn't contain. "I - you won't - I can't explain."
Remus took a deep breath, controlling himself and his feelings. He shuffled closer to his boyfriend and ran his finger along his cheek, going against all of his instincts not to and used his finger to wipe the tears that were spilling from the smaller boy’s eyes. His face was pale as he winced at the pain in his back.
"I don't understand." Remus' voice snapped. It was normal for him not to understand the emotions of others, but this was particularly baffling. He wrapped his arms around Sirius' face, stroking his long, curled, black hair. As stated previously, Sirius was different. Remus was perfectly comfortable allowing the boy to touch and hold him. He felt like home. He felt like security and safety if they were a person, and he loved it when Sirius touched him. But this was the first time that Remus had made the effort to touch him, which took both of them by slight surprise. "What - what is it?"
Sirius didn't reply, he melted into Remus' touch, holding his hand tightly. He just sobbed harsher, his breath getting caught in his throat as he shook his head.
"Alright - you don't have to tell me if you don’t want to. It's alright." Remus cooed into his ear. He had never seen Sirius in such a state. Sirius was the strongest person that he had ever met. He was much stronger than he could ever be, he thought. But this was something new. He had never seen him so broken. And he felt so weak, being unable to help him or to understand.
"I - I love you." Sirius choked out, his voice small.
Remus held Sirius in his arms, refusing to let go as he ran his fingers through his long, black curls. The soothing nature of the gesture made Sirius' muscles ease.
"I - I can't lose you. I can’t."
"I love you too." Remus said, his voice close to Sirius' ear. It tingled the nerves in his spine as the whisper hit his cornea. He fell into the taller boy's chest, taking in his familiar scent and holding him close.
The two boys fell silent, just holding one another. Remus didn't want to push Sirius to tell him anything if he was not comfortable, but he did want to know.
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