Boys Will Be Bugs

Chapter 99: Insecurity

There was nothing special about taking Sirius to the astronomy tower anymore, but Remus wasn't trying to show him anything special. He wanted to show him the most ordinary thing in the world, the mundane and the overlooked and the insignificant. He took him right to the edge of the balcony and made him lie down, so he could stare right at the moon.

Remus couldn't escape his own fate, nor could he ignore what he was, but he could choose to share it with someone else. He could choose to let somebody in and make them understand and tie his humanity to them so he never lost it.

"Look up," he murmured. "Look at the moon and tell me what you see." Sirius obliged and stared at the sky for a few seconds before speaking.

"I see the moon," he replied bluntly. "It's very bright." It was the night before Remus transformed, so the moon looked almost as big and round as it did when it was full, hanging above their heads like a lantern.

"No, look closer." Remus pointed. "Look at the way the moonlight dances across the surface, like it's vibrating." He could see beams of light swirling around like cigarette smoke. "The moonlight, it's making music."

"It is?"

"You can't hear it?" He continued to stare up at it, feeling the moonlight flow through him like oxygen. Sirius was there to keep him talking, to keep him grounded, but he still felt like he was floating. This time he wanted Sirius to float with him. "It's singing."

"You can hear that?"

"I can feel it." Remus held his hand. "Just look, as hard as you can, and you can feel it too." He wanted Sirius to experience the feeling of floating, to hear the singing inside his head, as if the moon was calling to him. It grew louder as he neared the night of transformation, and it was the loudest sound in the world, so he was sure Sirius must have been able to hear it too. It was beautiful, hypnotising, potentially dangerous, but as long as he shared it with somebody else, he'd be fine. Greyback had no one, no one to share the singing with. He probably couldn't even hear the singing. "Well?"

"Yeah, Moony, I feel it too." Remus looked over at him, but Sirius wasn't staring at the sky anymore, just at him.

"You're not looking."

"I don't need to." Remus stared steadily into his dark eyes.

"You don't feel it, do you?"

"I'm not a werewolf, Remus." He sounded sad, almost. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," whispered Remus. He turned back to the moon, but the singing had grown fainter, the moonlight now still. "Of course you can't feel it, I was being stupid."

"No, you weren't, I can't feel what you feel because I'm not a werewolf, but I feel something."

"Like what?"

"I don't know, but I'm glad you brought me up here." Sirius lifted Remus's hand up to his face and kissed the back of it. "I love you, you know that?"

"I know." He wanted Sirius to feel it, to hear it, to see it, but Remus had been too optimistic. Of course he was the only one who could feel it. He shouldn't have even bothered. He was feeling strange, even when he thought he had snapped out of it, there was still something lingering. He was struggling to keep his two forms together. It felt like they were trying to tear apart from his body and live their separate lives, and it scared him. He wanted Sirius there to be his link between the two, but Sirius was just a person. He couldn't do anything except humour him.

"Do you want us to join you tomorrow night?" asked Sirius, changing the subject without a second thought.

"Um... yeah, yeah I'd like that." They both fell silent, and Remus stopped looking at the moon. He felt emptier, and he'd never felt that way with Sirius before. It appeared that Sirius was wrong, after all. Remus had every reason to worry that he was straying further and further away from his friends.