Trouble
“Sirius, I lied to you because I didn’t want you to go on a rampage. You were right. As you can see,” Remus leaned closer to the mirror to examine his bruise, “Severus smacked me in the mouth. He doesn’t like me talking back to him the way I did. If I’d just come off the stage when he asked me to…”
They were in the dressing room. The costume department had finished the Romeo costume that Remus would wear for the majority of the play, and he was trying it on. He looked very cute perched on a stool in a puff-sleeved coat laced across his chest and knee-high suede boots over fitted trousers.
“He didn’t mean to bust my lip, of course. His ring did that.”
“I’ll kill him!” Sirius interrupted, spinning on his heels and heading for the door. “He hits you, I hit him.”
“Wait!” Remus flew after him, catching him by the arm and pulling him back. “Don’t give him another reason to keep us apart. Please, Sirius, he’s so jealous. We already can’t touch, I couldn’t bare it if he said we couldn’t speak to each other.”
Sirius took a deep breath. “I understand that, but do you expect me not to react? You need to break up with this loser, first off. And then he needs to learn a hard lesson about who it is he’s messed with.”
But Remus was adamant. “I’m not breaking up with him. It was one time, that’s all. He won’t do it again. I can actually be a hard person to get along with in a relationship, believe it or not, but he’s figuring out different methods of dealing with me.”
“Different methods of… What are you talking about, Reems? You’re a hard person to get along with? He told you that, I suppose. Wait, if that was the first time he hit you, why were you so scared of him before that? Why wouldn’t you come off the stage and talk to him?”
Remus sucked in his bottom lip, running his teeth over the swollen cut. He slumped back onto the stool and gave Sirius a long look that said he wished Sirius would just take a guess so he wouldn’t have to say it.
“Tell me. He’s been hitting you all along, hasn’t he?”
“No,” Remus stared down at his hands where they rested on his lap, “it isn’t that. He really has only hit me the once. But he scares me when he’s angry.”
Sirius saw that Remus’ hands were squeezing the fronts of his thighs so tightly he was white-knuckled. He went behind him and began massaging his shoulders, but Remus shook him off, reiterating that they were no longer allowed to touch.
“What does he do, Reems?”
Remus’ voice broke. He didn’t look up from his hands as he whimpered, “He yells, smashes things. He’s shoved me against the wall a couple of times, grabbed me by the shirt. He doesn’t hit me, though. He’s just… rough with me, sometimes.”
“Fuck, Moony.” Sirius leaned over him and threw his arms around him, and when Remus tried to shake him off, he only hugged tighter. “Leave him, please.”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Remus said, standing up and moving closer into Sirius’ arms, hugging him back. “It really wouldn’t be a big deal, it’s just that it gives me flashbacks. Suddenly, it’s my father screaming at me, getting ready to beat me, and I just lose it; I start crying and trying to get away.”
“What does Severus do when you lose it?” Sirius whispered slowly, afraid of the answer.
“After a while,” Remus wriggled out of the hug and glanced nervously at the door, “he leaves me alone.”
After a while. Not right away, but after a while. He’d seen Remus have a flashback; it was not a pretty sight. Sirius’ heart ached to picture his Moony crying and begging, frantic, while Severus ignored his pleas and continued to terrorize him.
“He’ll keep hitting you,” he said. “Soon he’ll be smacking you around whenever he pleases. He’s just working up to it now.”
Remus shook his head. “He’s apologized a million times. He promised he’ll never hit me again, no matter how I provoke him. Even though it was just a slap.”
“Maybe I should ‘just slap’ him.”
“Sirius! Look, the performances are coming up quick. You need to get along with him, at least until the play is over; after that, you never have to see him again if you don’t want to.”
“But you’ll still be dating the bastard?”
“Yes, I’ll still be dating him, provided he still wants me when I’m Remus Lupin, and not Romeo.”
***
The countdown was on to opening night.
Remus started drinking at rehearsals. Sirius saw him pull a flask from his coat pocket, and he was noticeably drunk on several occasions. Apparently he was drinking much of the day, as Sirius heard the teens gossiping that someone had spotted “Mr. Lupin spiking his coffee in the teachers’ lounge.”
And while he didn’t show up with visible bruising anymore, there were plenty of incidents to keep Sirius’ suspicions aroused.
There was the time Severus pulled Remus onto his lap and wrapped his arms around him. Remus had winced and said, “Ow,” to which Severus had replied, “Still hurting?” and loosened his grip. Then he’d kissed Remus’ cheek and said softly, “You know I didn’t mean it, darling.” Remus had nodded sadly, not looking at him.
Then there was the time Remus, drunk and teetering on the stage, was having trouble enunciating his lines. During a break, Severus said coldly, “Trust me when I say, we will discuss this at home.” And Remus was seemingly terrified enough at that revelation to snap out of his drunkenness and rush in front of Severus where he was stalking off and put his hands on his chest to stop him. “No, Sev,” he’d pleaded. “I’m sorry. Please, Sev. I’ll make it up to you, promise.” He’d looked so scared, even as he kissed Severus passionately, presumably to show him how he would “make it up” to him later.
And there were all the times that Severus stood menacingly over Remus like a master and his dog, held him controllingly by the back of the neck, jerked him by the arm when he wasn’t moving fast enough, or looked at him icily, causing Remus to tremble.
And all the time, Sirius could do nothing because he’d said he wouldn’t, and he couldn’t risk pushing Remus further away. Already, he was distant at rehearsals and never answered texts or phone calls. Sirius felt helpless to do anything for his friend, and he didn’t know how much longer he could take it.