All in the Family

Chapter 177: The Thief

"Lupin? Hey, Remus, you okay?"

He was not being held down anymore, that was the important part. He was sitting up and rubbing at his face and threw himself into his arms barely before he even knew it, and only realized after a few awkward pats he was hugging Regulus he was so deliriously happy to be free.

Regulus was fighting every instinctive urge to curse this weirdo off of him as he looked desperately around the blank stone passage. It was narrow, deserted, filthy with grime, dust and cobwebs, no windows in sight, and had a spiral stone staircase at either end. No way they were at Hogwarts. "Um, Remus?"

"Sorry," his brother's boyfriend whispered, sort of released him, and just fell to the floor, still gasping in air. He yelped and tried to jump back, no clue if it was a full moon or what to do here! Remus still had a trembling hand hooked onto his shirt and the other was red even in the faint light, but he kept rubbing at his face with it anyways.

He wasn't changing though, he'd watched that enough times to be positive he shouldn't be full blown running and screaming for help at least, so he went back to sort of awkwardly patting him on the shoulder and offered, "should I, um, go?" He wanted to go find Sirius, but last he saw they hadn't seemed to be on the best of terms and he didn't want to make this worse.

"No," his hand tightened in his shirt and he swallowed uncomfortably, but his breathing was finally evening out and he was looking more properly around now, he even went to inspect his other hand in his own mild surprise. "Please, just, give me a second."

"Okay," he said lamely, half his mind cringing at the look Mother would give him if she saw a werewolf sprawled on his feet and what she'd tell him to do about that, the rest of him trying to figure out how he'd gotten stuck with Sirius' two friends back to back and couldn't work up the nerve to say anything to either of them. It's not them he really wanted to ask this of anyways, not even Peter could answer.

As if mercifully summoned from the shadows, a black dog came galloping around the corner like a death omen, but both smiled in relief to see Padfoot switch back.

"Moony!" He stumbled on the uneven floor and collapsed beside him, reaching for him automatically. "Hey, it's okay, you're out, just let it out Remus."

Regulus found himself finally released, and with even less of an inclination to leave as Remus curled up against Sirius. His brother kept making soft gentle noises he'd never heard in his life, took the oddly injured hand in both of his and murmured a soft apology and finally when it was clear Remus was calm, there was a sweetness in his teasing voice that sounded foreign to him but was so familiar by now for the way he usually talked to and about his friends. "I'm gone for five seconds and you're hooking up with my brother? The scandal!"

Remus buried his face farther into Sirius' chest and muttered something that made his brother smile, but then look up at him and it was all gone. He just looked, sad. He opened his mouth, stopped and looked back down at his boyfriend, and then back at him and mouthed, 'sorry.'

He didn't know what he was sorry for, and he didn't really expect an answer right now. Instead he uneasily cleared his throat and asked, "should I, um, go find, James?"

Remus was finally sitting up and looking around properly for the first time, taking in the awkward air, but Padfoot spoke firmly first, "not alone, just give me five seconds. We need to go find the others." Then Sirius turned back to him still just holding him gently in place, "Moony?"

"I'm good," he lied, trying to force his feet back into some semblance of working order. Sirius had already bounded back upright and was trying to support his weight before he got the first muscle in his leg to work. "I'll run the length of Hogwarts right now, fit as a fiddle."