Bewitched | wolfstar au

Eight

There's a difficult side to living alone that you don't realise until you experience it for yourself. Sometimes it's just minor inconveniences. No one to get the door if you're having a shower, having to carry all your groceries by yourself... Merlin forbid you have to cook.

Cooking for one... what's the point?

But worst of all are those nights when you just can't take it. The melancholy of loneliness, creeping up to you and just sitting there, making you dizzy as you breathe it in. To have someone make him a mug of tea and ask him to stop studying and go to bed, Remus feels like he could do anything.

He always tells himself that the reason he doesn't call his home is because they're better off left alone without having to deal with a monster. A literal monster. In those dark years of his late teens, Remus watched his father slowly sink into madness, thrust deeper and deeper into it by the guilt he felt every full moon. His father never stopped blaming himself.

And his mother, his poor mother. He watched her fade away, watched as the lines on her forehead became deeper, as her hair went grey, as she shrank and shrank until she was unrecognizable.

Remus misses her so much.

The real reason he doesn't talk to them is that he's scared. Scared of what he'll say. Scared of what they'll say. It was so hard at first, it physically hurt him to stay away. However, as it does always happen with these things, time slowly brought him comfort - comfort and cats. The pain of missing his parents doesn't really make itself known anymore.

But spending so much time with Sirius -even if Remus had essentially no choice- has opened those wounds up again. As the sun goes down, making way for the full moon that Remus feared more than anything else, Remus feels lonely again.

He aches all over. Deep in his bones there's some vehement force that he can never hope to control, and it's stretching its limbs and waking up. Wiping at his damp cheeks, Remus pushes the small knob on the floor behind a cupboard in the living room. He stumbles down the staircase that reveals itself from a corner of the room and watches the floorboards close above him.

There's not much more he can do. In the viscous dark if the cellar, Remus curls up into a ball and waits.

***

Sirius stares at his mobile phone with furrowed eyebrows. He was excited, he had everything ready -not that he needed much- to pay Remus a visit. He had even bought a roll of crisp drawing paper to draw the plan. But in the morning he received a simple text that crushed all his hopes. And he may be dramatic when he phrases it like that, but if he was being honest, it truly did make him feel dejected.

Visiting my mom, out for four days. Don't come today. See you soon.

When the notification appeared on the screen, Sirius was really excited. It was his first text message ever. Well, from someone other than James. And Lily. And Regulus... His first text message from anyone other than his immediate associates. Such a shame that the content had to be so... so distressing.

"You've been staring at your phone a lot since morning... Have you broken it again?" Regulus raises an eyebrow from across the table where he's making himself a mug of chocolate. "No, it's fine," Sirius shrugs. "I got a text from Remus."

"Never thought I'd live to see the day," Regulus laughs. Sirius glares at him. "Okay, okay, chill out," regulus rolls his eyes, "Is that your Hogsmeade boyfriend?"

"He's not my boyfriend," Sirius says a little too quickly, earning a smirk from Regulus. "But yes, it was him."

"What did he say?"

"Not to come over... His mother's sick." Sirius sighs, placing his chin on his palms.

Regulus gives a small shrug. "People get sick all the time, Sirius," he stirs his mug, "Stop looking like you just watched a dog get run over. It's depressing."

Sirius rolls his eyes. "I'm depressing," he shrugs back, "Can I have a mug, too?"

"Sure you can," Regulus gives him a sweet smile. Too sweet. "Come make it yourself, you dramatic depresso."

***

A

uthor's Note

I know this chapter's criminally short, but... Sirius' POV! And Regulus! I swear I'm trying to have a better writing routine... but the thing about my writing routine is that it's currently non-existent. No really, the bat outside my window that's not letting me sleep is the main cause behind this chapter. It's 4 am, ffs. But the angst is coming, so uh, be prepared I guess.

Enjoy xx