Descend - Wolfstar + Marauders

Love and Duty

“How can you even consider it? After everything that’s happened!” shouted Sirius.

“What alternative do you propose?” asked Remus evenly.

“You tell him no! That’s what I fucking propose! It’s too soon,” insisted Sirius.

“The work I’m doing is more important now than it ever has been. Greyback is gaining followers at an alarming rate since Oliver’s death and we may have finally found someone who can help fight it. My personal problems are not more important than this and you know it,” explained Remus.

Remus stood firmly, arms folded. Sirius paced back and forth in front of him like an animal in a cage. Remus knew he was only acting out in fear, but it was getting increasingly difficult to hide his exasperation. They had been going in circles for what felt like ages and Sirius was refusing to see reason.

“You’ve said it yourself, those places are full of drugs! It’s only been a month and you can barely cope with these missions under the best of circumstances,” said Sirius, stopping his pacing and taking a step towards Remus. "Your last transformation was brutal, what if it's like that again?"

The stress and anxiety of being newly clean, on top of the lingering physical weakness from his withdrawal had made for a difficult time. He'd expected as much, but he'd hoped having Sirius with him would help mitigate the damage. It hadn't. Things had been more difficult since James stopped being able to join them. Without both him and Sirius to help keep him under control, it just wasn't safe to go out into open spaces for his transformations. Not that it was ever really safe. With the loss of his dad's property on top of that, it left them with limited options. They'd found a small abandoned warehouse out in the sticks a while back and warded it to hell. They didn't feel it was safe enough for Peter to come along without James, as his animagus form was unable to defend against the wolf. Still, usually having Padfoot with him helped at least a bit.

Usually pumping himself full of chemicals before hand also helped. Sirius wasn't wrong. The last transformation had been brutal. Sirius hadn't been able to stay with him the whole night. It had gotten too dangerous, even for him. Remus had woken up the next day with multiple new cuts, the worst of which left him with a heavily bleeding wound across his stomach. Thankfully Sirius was a good hand at healing deep wounds. James and Peter were too. They'd all had practice over the years.

"It won't be like that there. The transformations in the packs... they're easier. I'm not alone, or confined. You don't have to worry about that," Remus explained. It was true. In fact, though he'd never say so to Sirius, he'd actually come to prefer spending the full moon that way. Every single second he was in those places he wanted to be somewhere else, but once they were transformed it was different. They were all in it together, one way or another.

Sirius started pacing again. Remus had a counter for every argument he made and it was driving him fucking insane. How did he not understand? How could he not see what he was risking?

“I've just got you back, Remus. Things can't go back to how they were. This is what started this whole fucking thing. You were fine until you started going on these missions and then everything spiraled out from there!”

For a moment Remus was taken aback, then he huffed out a bitter laugh. Sirius stopped in his tracks, shooting him an indignant glare.

“Care to let me in on the joke?” he spat.

“That’s not when it started, Sirius, that’s just when it stopped being fun for you,” Remus said flatly.

It was Sirius’ turn to look taken aback. “Funny, I don’t recall you spacing out, having panic attacks, doing heroin or, I don’t know, nearly fucking dying of an overdose before you started going to the packs,” Sirius accused.