Waking Up with Remus Lupin

by Beyond_the_Farthest_Star

Summary:

Sirius wakes up alone.

Chapter 1: Waking Up Alone

Sirius curled up in the furthest corner of his bed, trying to ignore his discomfort and the ghastly smell. He just had to wait a few hours, then it would be over. He could be the first one out of bed, pop into the shower and get dressed and no one would notice a thing. The house elves would change the sheets during lessons, and everything would be in perfect order by the time anyone set foot back in the dormitory.

Normally, he wouldn’t just sit in his own mess like this. He’d sneak to the bathroom and get himself clean and then find a dry spot where he could try to get back to sleep. But he knew Remus struggled to sleep deeply in the days preceding the full moon. It was getting close now, and Remus needed his sleep. Sirius wouldn’t risk disturbing him.

He shut his eyes and tried to breathe through the fabric of his t-shirt. He tried to relax. He tried to force himself back to sleep.

Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work. He felt gross, and it smelled, and everything was wet and sticky, and… and, fuck, he was too old for this. He was seventeen now. He was an adult. He should be able to wake up when he needed the loo, but he still kept wetting himself like a baby.

At least he was at Hogwarts this time. The last time he had woken to a soaked mattress had been at the Potters’, and it had been utterly mortifying. He had lain in place, the realisation slowly dawning that he would have to fix this himself if he wanted to avoid anyone finding out. Next, he had realised that he no idea where the family kept their linen and that he would not be able to put things to rights on his own. He’d had to wake James, and James had seen his awful mess and cleaned it up for him. Sirius didn’t think he’d ever been that ashamed, and James hadn’t even acted angry or disgusted; he’d just told him it was okay, as if Sirius would believe that. Still, it was better for James to be secretly disgusted than for his parents to see and… Sirius wasn’t sure what they would have done, and he desperately hoped that he never found out.

They were kind. They were so kind, just like James was; but even their patience and tolerance could only stretch so far. He’d already been far more trouble than he was worth, and soiling their sheets was exactly the sort of thing that would make them decide they’d had enough of him.

But this time he was at school, so no one had to find out. He felt so fucking awful, he was struggling to resist the urge to transform. He had become accustomed to turning into Padfoot whenever he was feeling any sort of negative emotion by himself. It made everything easier. His thoughts couldn’t get so complicated and tangled up when he was a dog. His emotions were simpler. If he tried that now, the smell would make him lose his mind. He’d probably make a noise and wake Remus, so he had to endure this as a human.

Just a few hours.

If he could just turn his brain off and fall asleep, it would be over soon.

But he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t stop thinking.

He was thinking about more than just how filthy he felt and how shameful it all was. He’d been dreaming before, and he kept seeing the images and reliving the emotions.

He’d dreamed about being back in that house. That part he couldn’t remember much of, but it was probably what had made him wet himself. He could only recall being there and thinking how he’d never really escape. Fear. Despair.

But before that – he thought it was before – he’d been dreaming about Remus.

He’d been dreaming about Remus.

It had happened a few months ago. Remus had been sitting next to Lily in the common room, and he’d turned to look at something and Sirius had seen the side of his face and the way his jumper had stretched over his shoulder, and…

And now Sirius couldn’t stop thinking about Remus’s face.

His eyes.

His nose and lips and hair.

He’d never really thought about any of it before, but now it was always there.

Remus’s brown eyes with their fine lashes, and the bushy eyebrows above them. They had a delicate pattern Sirius had first noticed years ago, wavy lines streaming from the pupils.

Remus’s nose, with the crooked bridge. And his hair, the way it fell across his forehead when he worked, the way he tugged his fingers through it when he got frustrated. Sirius had felt it before. It was coarser than his own.

And his lips. Sirius couldn’t stop thinking how he’d like to feel them. They looked soft. Lovely, pink and soft, and Sirius hated himself.

He couldn’t have thoughts like this. He couldn’t think about Remus the way he was. He couldn’t.

He’d been dreaming about Remus’s hands. He hadn’t even noticed them that evening, when he’d first realised.

Remus had beautiful hands. He fiddled with the cuticles too much. They were narrow and the fingers were long. He kept his nails short, and the beds were much pinker than the skin of the fingers around them. Sirius sometimes let his nails grow too long, but Remus took good care of his. His hands were beautiful, and Sirius had seen them in his dreams.

He bit into his arm as hard as he could. Well, until it started to hurt too much and he stopped, because he was a bloody coward. Maybe if he actually made it hurt, he’d stop having these thoughts.

He couldn’t think about Remus this way. He couldn’t. It was… It was… If anyone ever found out… If Remus ever found out…

He made a terrible, high-pitched choking sound and pressed a hand over his mouth to make himself shut up before he woke the whole dormitory. He breathed through his nose and tried to hate himself more quietly.

“Sirius?” came a whispered voice. He stopped breathing, hoping whoever it was would believe he was asleep and go back to bed themselves.

There was a quiet sigh from beyond his hangings and his curtain was pulled aside.

Remus.

Fuck. He’d only gone and woken Remus.

“What are you doing?” Remus asked, sounding quite perplexed. “Come on; get away from there.”

Sirius considered whether he could just stay resolutely where he was until Remus gave up and left him alone.

“Sirius!” Remus hissed. “Come here!” He leaned forward, as though he was planning on reaching over the filthy bed to grab Sirius. He was also getting less quiet with each utterance, and Sirius had to concede that staying put wasn’t a realistic option. If he didn’t relent and get out of bed (though he wasn’t sure why Remus was set on achieving that), he’d just end up waking everyone and causing even more commotion.

He clambered over to Remus reluctantly.

“Come on,” Remus whispered, steering him towards the bathroom.

Once they were inside, Sirius pressed his eyes shut, partially because the light was too bright, but mostly because he couldn’t bear to see Remus’s expression after finding him in such an embarrassing position. He kept his arms folded across his torso, since the spot he’d bitten was throbbing dully and he thought there might be a visible mark. At least he could stop Remus from seeing that.

Remus didn’t say anything, and Sirius just stood there, visualising his reaction to realising one of his friends still pissed himself for absolutely no reason.

He opened his eyes when he heard the sound of water running. Remus wasn’t looking at him at all. He was leaning into the shower, probably fiddling with the taps.

After a minute, he stepped aside, eyes fixed on the tile floor rather than Sirius. “Go on. It’s warm,” he said quietly.

Bemused, Sirius tried to tell Remus off for treating him like a child, even if he had been behaving like one. “Moony, you don’t… I can…” He huffed in frustration.

“Shower. We’ll talk after,” Remus said bluntly.

He supposed he couldn’t deny that he needed a wash. “How about I shower, you go back to bed, and we never talk about this again?” he suggested.

Remus chuckled, like some part of this could be considered amusing. “Yeah, sure,” he said.

Sirius wasn’t sure what to make of that. He had to get clean. That was the first thing, before he worried about anything else.

He stepped under the stream of water, the temperature almost perfect, and scrubbed himself quickly. He had left a mark on his arm. He’d bitten through the skin, and it was oozing blood now, just a little. He pressed at the wound for a few seconds and hoped that would be enough to make it stop. As he reached for the taps to turn the water off, he prayed Remus had listened to him and gone to bed, so he wouldn’t have to be seen in just a towel.

Taking a deep breath, he peeked out and saw fresh clothes waiting on a stool.

“I hope those are all right,” he heard Remus saying from just out of view. “Didn’t want to turn all the lights on, you know?”

“No, they’re perfect. Thanks,” said Sirius, grabbing the clothes and dressing hurriedly. They were a pair of his pyjama bottoms and an old t-shirt, which was exactly what he normally slept in. He folded his right arm across his abdomen, so that stupid wound wouldn’t be visible, and stepped out to where Remus was waiting patiently.

“Feeling better?” Remus asked.

Sirius nodded, still absolutely mortified to have been found the way he had been, especially by Remus.

“Why didn’t you go wash on your own?” Remus’s voice wasn’t judgemental, just curious.

“Didn’t want to wake you,” Sirius mumbled.

“You don’t normally worry about that,” said Remus.

Sirius stared at him. He didn’t mean… Remus’s eyes widened as he seemed to realise what he’d just said, confirming to Sirius that he had, in fact, been aware of these incidents before tonight.

“No, I didn’t – Shit!”

Sirius chuckled, because Remus did not swear often.

“Sorry,” Remus said lamely.

Sirius wanted to say it was okay, but Remus having known all this time was such an unwelcome thought. “So… you’ve noticed before…?”

“I could smell it,” Remus said apologetically. “And I never said anything, because I didn’t want to embarrass you. But you just stayed there this time. Why didn’t you get up?”

Sirius started chewing on his lip. “Because the full moon’s in two days and I know you have trouble sleeping this time of the month, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

Remus made a disbelieving sound. “So, what was your plan? Just sit there miserably until morning?”

Sirius shrugged and Remus sighed, stepping closer so he could grasp Sirius’s shoulders.

“Sirius.” He sounded stern, and Sirius didn’t like it one bit. Sure, he deserved to be scolded, but that didn’t make it easier to bear. “You can’t do that. You can’t be that self-sacrificing; that’s ridiculous.”

That wasn’t exactly what he’d expected to be scolded for. “But you need to get enough sleep,” he tried explaining.

“Oh, and you don’t? It’s fine for you to be up all night?” His voice sounded softer now. He was scolding Sirius, yes, but it was because he cared about him. If anything, that only served to make him feel more ashamed. “You’re my friend, Sirius. You don’t have to…” He sighed. “Come on, let’s go to bed.”

Sirius nodded, not exactly eager to return to his own bed, but it would only be for a few hours.

“What are you doing?” Remus whispered when Sirius headed in that direction.

Confused, Sirius told him, “I’m going to bed.”

“You can’t sleep there!” Remus hissed at him. “It’s all wet and… Come, you can sleep next to me.”

Sirius felt a pang of panic, because he simply could not sleep next to Remus, but he also could not get into a lengthy discussion in the dormitory where James and Peter were still sleeping. “No, it’s… it’s fine,” he tried.

“Don’t be silly. You sleep next to James all the time.”

That was so completely different, but he couldn’t explain why without leaving Remus utterly horrified, but if he refused without explaining, it would seem like he just preferred James. Oh, Merlin.

“Come on, Sirius. I promise I won’t do anything weird.” Of that Sirius had no doubt. Remus wasn’t the one at risk of behaving inappropriately.

Incapable of coming up with a plausible reason not to share with Remus (and really not fancying the prospect of his own bed), he followed Remus and gingerly got under the blanket beside him, appreciating that Remus shuffled over so they could lie with some space between them.

Staring up at the dark ceiling above them, Sirius thought the odds of him falling asleep were quite low. He was happy to be dry and clean and, unlike Remus, he couldn’t smell anything from this distance (not while he was in human form, anyway); but at the same time, he couldn’t stop thinking about how Remus was lying right next to him.

“Sleep well, Padfoot,” Remus whispered.

“Right. Yeah. You, too.” Merlin, what was wrong with him? Could he not even respond to sleep well without ballsing it up? “I mean… Thank you for, erm… Well, erm… Goodnight, Moony.”

He heard a soft sound, like a suppressed laugh, maybe. “Mm. Goodnight, Sirius.”

Chapter 2: Waking Up with Sirius Black

Remus came gradually to awareness, sensing that it was still well before he needed to be awake, and also that there was something on top of him. He was momentarily confused by the weight pressing onto his chest and thighs, before remembering that he had, while sleep deprived and severely lacking proper judgement, reached the conclusion that he ought to let Sirius get into bed with him. And now Sirius seemed to have rolled onto him in his sleep. Splendid.

The feeling was actually rather pleasant, comforting even, which was not ideal. He shifted carefully so as to redistribute the pressure somewhat, without disturbing Sirius. He allowed his gaze to shift to Sirius’s face, ill-advised though that was. He had seen Sirius asleep before, obviously, many times. He had never watched him sleep, however, because he had been trying not to be an absolute creep. This was a bad idea. It was all such a bad idea.

He could not stop himself from thinking how sweet Sirius looked right now. When awake, his expression was perpetually guarded. He made himself always appear fierce, cheeky, angry, in some way invulnerable. There were only rare instances when he lost control of himself, like last night, or the night he had run away, when his insecurities shone through. None of that was present now. He was perfectly peaceful, free of any sort of pretence or negativity. He looked like nothing but a boy.

Remus felt the urge to do something stupid, like stroking the loose strands of hair away from Sirius’s forehead, or letting his finger dance across those lax lips, or moving his own head so he could press his lips to Sirius –

Dangerous. This was very dangerous.

Remus turned his head away.

He wasn’t going to be able to hold still for very long with Sirius’s leg pressing onto his thighs as it was. There was only so much moving he could do without dislodging him completely. He sighed and focussed his gaze on Sirius’s arm, draped over his chest. He frowned. There was something… It wasn’t bleeding, but it looked like it had been quite recently. There was a circle made up of little red indentations. It looked like a bite mark. A human bite mark.

How could Sirius have gotten bitten? More importantly, how could Sirius have gotten bitten without Remus knowing about it?

He thought back to the previous night. He could remember Sirius hugging himself, which would have made the injury harder to see. Had he been hiding it on purpose? That wasn’t the sort of thing he’d normally do. If he’d gotten into a fight that had involved biting, he would definitely have gone on about it yesterday.

Maybe it was… Well, Remus knew that people did sometimes do that sort of thing during intimate encounters, though Sirius wasn’t usually cagey about that sort of thing, either, much to Remus’s displeasure.

Well, what then? Why would Sirius not have talked about it? Was there someone he didn’t want to admit had hurt him? Remus knew Sirius had kept plenty of secrets about his former home life, and still he never really talked about any of that, but he hadn’t been back there in almost a year. He might keep secrets for his brother. Remus dismissed that idea immediately. He couldn’t imagine Regulus Black would ever resort to biting.

Was it possible he had done it to himself? It seemed absurd, but then Remus was covered in scars, almost all of them self-inflicted. Of course, he only did that when he was distressed and out of his mind. Could something like that happen to Sirius? He hadn’t been quite himself last night, but it had hardly been akin to a werewolf transformation.

Sirius mumbled something unintelligible and cracked his eyes open. Suddenly wide awake, he lurched backwards, pushing uncomfortably into Remus’s solar plexus in the process.

“Oh, fuck, I’m sorry!” Sirius exclaimed, possibly apologising for how violently he had woken up, or possibly for having rolled onto Remus in the first instance.

“It’s fine,” Remus gasped, rubbing his chest. “Don’t worry about it.”

Sirius’s cheeks went red as he continued to stutter out apologies and Remus shook his head, assuring him it was all right.

“What time’s it?” Sirius asked eventually.

Remus estimated, “About seven, I think?” He reached past Sirius to where he’d left his wristwatch and checked the time. 06:57. Not bad, he thought and tried not to let himself look too smug about it.

“I woke you up again,” said Sirius dejectedly.

Remus shook his head. “No, I just wake up early sometimes. It’s not because of you.” It probably had been because of Sirius, actually, but he’d had a hard enough night without Remus adding any misplaced feeling of guilt.

Sirius sat beside him uncomfortably, his cheeks still flushed. Remus prayed his didn’t match. Waking up in bed with Sirius Black was making him feel all sorts of mixed up things, and, god, did he hope Sirius never discovered that.

“Thanks for, er… last night, erm…” Sirius mumbled, his whole face colouring.

“It’s no problem,” Remus said, trying to sound unbothered. Maybe there was a bit of a problem, but not for the reasons Sirius thought. “We don’t have to talk about it.” Was that the right thing to say? Should he not be telling Sirius that he could talk about it, if he wanted to? It was just that Remus didn’t want to think any more about how vulnerable Sirius had looked, or about Sirius in the shower, or Sirius getting changed just a few feet away from him, or Sirius in his bed, touching him in a manner he would never consider while he was awake, or how young he looked when he was asleep. Yes, he was certainly doing a great job not thinking about any of that. He was a terrible friend.

“Thank you. Let’s just pretend none of it happened. Deal?”

That was exactly what Remus wanted to do, so he agreed readily. “Deal. I’ll just say, you don’t have to be embarrassed about any of it. Really.”

Sirius scoffed. “Right. Will you drop it now?”

Remus nodded. “Of course.” They’d just carry on like normal and never mention it again, and Remus would think about it constantly for the rest of his life. He felt a tangled mess of fondness, sympathy, lust, guilt. There was something wrong with him. “Did you sleep all right?” he asked, trying to behave like a normal, sane person.

Sirius chuckled. “Oh, yeah. I slept great.” Remus couldn’t tell whether he was being sarcastic. Had he made Sirius uncomfortable? Stupid question. Sirius was obviously uncomfortable about the whole situation, but Remus couldn’t think how he could have handled things better. Sure, Sirius was embarrassed that Remus knew he had accidents, but what else could he have done? He couldn’t very well have let him stay in his own bed all night. Perhaps he should have let him shower and get dressed without staying right there in the bathroom, but he’d looked so helpless, Remus had really been concerned he might not take care of himself properly without assistance. It seemed ridiculous now, but… He had just stood there. Remus had been waiting for him to run the shower himself or say something, but he’d acted like he’d had no clue what to do with himself. Remus didn’t think he’d been wrong to help, though he could definitely understand Sirius feeling awkward about it.

“I’m going to go get dressed,” Remus said, making up an excuse to let them both be on their own for a moment. As he crawled past Sirius, he remembered the mark on his arm and paused. “Here.” He reached under his bedside table, where he kept ointment for his moon-related wounds. “For your arm,” he explained.

Sirius took the container, his gaze fixed upon the duvet. “Thanks,” he said, turning his arm so Remus could no longer see the injury.

Remus was concerned by the way Sirius was refusing to acknowledge it, as though he didn’t want to admit how he’d gotten it. Which was harder to imagine: that Sirius would cause harm to himself, or that he would try to hide that someone else had harmed him?

“Please don’t hurt yourself, Sirius,” he said. His voice came out much smaller than he would have liked.

Sirius sighed. “Christ, Moony, it’s not like I did it on purpose.” He was being just slightly aggressive, more in-keeping with his usual demeanour. Was that a good sign? He still wasn’t being particularly forthcoming, but he had all but admitted to having done it himself, though not on purpose. Remus couldn’t imagine how someone could bite themselves unintentionally. Had he been wrong about it being a bite mark? Whatever it was, Sirius clearly didn’t want to talk about it, so they wouldn’t. Remus was trying to be a decent friend and not meddle in things that didn’t concern him.

He wanted to tell Sirius that it was all right, whatever was going on. He wanted to persuade him not to feel embarrassed, because he hadn’t done anything wrong, and he’d seen Remus in much less dignified situations, after all. He wanted to tell Sirius how much he admired him, and how he’d almost kissed him just there, before he’d woken up, but not in a gross way, he just…

He nodded and slipped through the gap in the curtains, leaving Sirius to look after himself. He was a perfectly capable adult. He didn’t need Remus acting like a mother hen. He wanted to forget about last night, because Remus had behaved ridiculously and just ended up embarrassing both of them, and it was actually damn decent for Sirius to be willing to move on like nothing had happened.

He began rummaging through his cupboard, having a surprising amount of difficulty considering he was looking for the same uniform he wore every day, when he either came to his senses or lost his grip on them entirely. (He would work out which it was later.)

“No,” he said, too loudly for seven in the morning with James and Peter still trying to sleep. He went back over to his bed and yanked the curtain open, causing Sirius to shrink back and clutch his right arm protectively. “Sirius,” he said more gently, “you can’t just roll your eyes and scoff at me trying to help you. You’ve been taking care of me and accepting me almost as long as we’ve known each other, but you act like it’s embarrassing for me to want to do something for you one time?”

Sirius was grimacing and looking roughly at Remus’s abdomen instead of his face. “It’s not the same,” he said.

Remus agreed it was not the same, though he thought he was seeing it quite the opposite way round to Sirius. He was a werewolf. He was always injured or exhausted, and he turned into a murderous monster every month. His friends had done more than stand by him, they had performed advanced and dangerous magic to do so. What had Sirius done that could compare to the difficulties Remus caused?

“I can take care of myself.”

Remus scoffed. “So can I. But we’re friends, and it goes both ways. Why do you spend full moons with me?”

Sirius looked confused. “Because…”

“Is it just because it’s fun? Is it because you pity me?”

“No!” Sirius looked affronted. “Of course not. I don’t… It’s not…”

Remus knew how it felt to need help and to know he always would. He knew what it was like when his friends did more for him than he could ever do in return. “Has it not occurred to you that I might care about you as much as you do about me?”

Sirius certainly looked like the concept made no sense to him.

“He’s right, you know,” came Peter’s muffled voice from the other side of the room.

“Wormtail!” hissed James.

Peter’s face popped out from behind his curtain. “We love you, Padfoot, and if you needed us to turn into animals or visit you in the hospital wing, we’d do that for you, too.”

“Happily,” added James.

“Yeah, happily,” Peter confirmed.

Remus tried to smile at Sirius. “See?”

Sirius shook his head. “It’s not the same,” he repeated, too quietly for anyone but Remus to hear.

Peter flopped back onto his mattress. “I don’t even know what you’re on about or why you’re in Moony’s bed or why you had to wake us up before it’s light, but I promise I’m not even peeved about it.”

Sirius sniggered. “I’m sorry, Wormy.”

James replied, “It’s all fine, Sirius. Just keep quiet for a few more minutes, please?”

Sirius nodded, even though Remus was the only one looking. He stepped closer and whispered, “You don’t have to be… strong all the time.”

Sirius nodded grudgingly. “I know that. I know it. Just… I don’t like causing other people hassle.”

Remus shook his head. “You aren’t. You’re our friend, and we’re here for you, always.”

Sirius looked at him intensely, clearly still grappling with the concept.

“It is acceptable for you to get help sometimes.”

Sirius shook his head. “It’s not sometimes,” he said, exasperated.

“Well, it’s certainly not all the time,” Remus countered. It was nowhere near as often as he himself needed help. “And even it were, you’re worth helping.”

Sirius chewed his lip, shaking his head minutely, likely not conscious he was doing it.

“You’re worth helping,” Remus repeated. He wanted to do something, to reach out and touch, to squeeze Sirius tight and somehow force him to believe words he clearly wasn’t ready to accept. He settled for nudging Sirius in a way he hoped came across as playful rather than weird. “’Cause you’re our friend and we’d do anything for you.”

Sirius grinned rather half-heartedly, and Remus supposed that, for now, that would have to do.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 4 of Goodnight, Sirius