The full moon had come and gone, leaving behind its customary wreckage. Sirius had spent the night pacing the length of the drawing room, listening to the distant, muffled howls that even the soundproofing charms couldn’t entirely smother. Each cry was a physical blow, a reminder of the agony Remus was enduring alone.

By late the next afternoon, Sirius couldn’t stand the waiting anymore. Remus had a habit of hiding himself away after the transformation, holing up until the worst of the pain and exhaustion had passed, as if his suffering were a source of shame. Sirius wouldn't have it. Not this time.

He found him in the Black family library, a room Sirius usually avoided. It smelled of dust, dark magic, and decay, the shelves groaning under the weight of books bound in human skin. But Remus had always been drawn to it, a quiet scholar in a house of shrieking madness. He was slumped in one of the high-backed leather armchairs, looking impossibly small against its oppressive size. His skin was paler than parchment, almost translucent, and dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes.

He was trying to tend to a gash on his forearm. It was long and deep, still weeping blood sluggishly onto a rag he held against it. His movements were clumsy, his hand shaking with exhaustion as he tried to uncork a small bottle of essence of dittany.

“Leave it,” Sirius said, his voice coming out harsher than he intended.

Remus jumped, his head snapping up. His amber eyes were clouded with pain. “Sirius. I’m fine.”

“You look like hell,” Sirius countered, striding across the room. He knelt in front of Remus’s chair, ignoring the protest on his friend’s face. “Give me that.”

He took the dittany and the rag from Remus’s unresisting fingers. He summoned a bowl of water and a clean cloth from the kitchen with a flick of his wand. The proximity was immediate and absolute. Sirius’s knees brushed against Remus’s legs, and he had to lean in close to see the wound properly in the dim, dusty light. He could feel the heat radiating from Remus’s body, a low-grade fever that always followed the moon. He could smell the unique scent of him—old books, clean wool, and the faint, metallic tang of blood.

Sirius worked with a focus he rarely afforded anything. His hands, usually so restless, became steady. He gently pulled Remus’s arm onto his own thigh for support, the simple contact sending a tremor through them both. Remus flinched but didn't pull away. Sirius dipped the cloth into the cool water and began to clean the edges of the wound, his touch feather-light. He worked methodically, wiping away the dried blood and dirt, exposing the raw, torn flesh beneath.

The silence in the room was absolute, broken only by the soft splash of water and their synchronized breaths. Sirius was intensely aware of every hitch in Remus’s breathing when his fingers brushed a particularly tender spot, of the way Remus’s eyes were fixed on his hands. He could feel the fine tremble in Remus’s arm and fought the urge to simply wrap his hand around it and hold on. This was an intimacy far deeper than any they had shared before, built in the quiet space between a wound and its healing. He was touching Remus’s pain, tending to the part of him that the world, and Remus himself, tried so hard to hide.

“This one looks like it was a bastard,” Sirius murmured, his voice low in the quiet room. He uncorked the dittany, the sharp, herbal scent cutting through the mustiness. He let three drops fall onto the cleaned gash. The flesh sizzled, smoke curling up as the skin began to knit itself together. Remus sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, his entire body going rigid. His fingers dug into Sirius’s thigh.

“Sorry,” Sirius said, his own voice tight. He didn't let go of Remus’s arm.

“It’s alright,” Remus breathed out, the words thin. “Better than it was.”

“Remember that time in fifth year?” Sirius asked, his voice softer now as he reached for the roll of bandages. He started wrapping the arm, his movements slow and deliberate. “When you tried to stop me and James from hexing Snape by the lake, and you tripped and tore your arm open on that jagged rock?”

A faint, tired smile touched Remus’s lips. “James panicked. Thought you’d both be expelled.”

“He did,” Sirius agreed, a familiar ache twisting in his gut. “He spent the entire night in the hospital wing trying to convince Madam Pomfrey it was his fault. Kept trying to transfigure her teacups into gerbils to distract her.” The memory was so clear, so painfully bright against the grey reality of their lives now. It was a time before betrayal, before Azkaban, before all this loss. A time when their biggest problem was getting caught out of bounds.

“We were idiots,” Remus said, but there was no heat in it, only a deep, abiding weariness.

“We were,” Sirius said, smoothing the bandage down. His fingers lingered on Remus’s forearm, just below the fresh dressing. “We were so caught up in ourselves. In being clever and loud and taking up all the space in the room.” He finally lifted his head, forcing himself to meet Remus’s gaze. The amber eyes were clouded with exhaustion, but they were fixed on him, waiting.

“My biggest regret from all that time,” Sirius admitted, his voice barely above a whisper, “isn't a prank gone wrong or a detention earned. It was that I never really looked at you. Not properly.”

Remus’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Sirius, what are you…”

“The moons,” Sirius clarified, his throat feeling tight. “All of it. We were there, we helped, we became animals for you. But we treated it like another grand adventure. Another secret to keep, another rule to break. I never… I never stopped to think about what it was actually doing to you. The pain. Not just on the night of the full moon, but every day. The fear. I saw the scars, but I never truly saw the cost.”

His gaze was intense, holding Remus captive. He wanted him to understand that this wasn't just about friendship. This was about a blindness he cursed himself for, a fundamental failure to see the person who had mattered most. It was a confession of a different kind of negligence, one rooted in a feeling he hadn't had the courage to name then, and barely had the courage to acknowledge now. The air thickened, charged with everything he wasn't saying. The regret wasn’t just for a friend’s pain; it was for a love he’d been too young, too stupid, and too afraid to see.

He finished tying off the bandage, but he didn't let go. He couldn't. His thumb began to move, a slow, hypnotic stroke over the warm, unmarred skin of Remus’s inner arm. He traced the path of a faint blue vein, feeling the fine hairs there catch on the pad of his thumb. Under his touch, a tremor ran through Remus’s entire frame, a deep vibration that Sirius felt travel up his own arm and settle low in his gut.

Remus’s breath caught. His amber eyes, wide and dark in the dim light, were locked on Sirius’s face. The exhaustion was still there, but beneath it, something else flickered to life. Something raw and unguarded that mirrored the ache in Sirius’s own chest. The air grew heavy, thick with the dust motes dancing in the slivers of light and the weight of a dozen years of unspoken words.

Sirius’s gaze dropped to Remus’s mouth. His lips were chapped, slightly parted. He watched, mesmerized, as the tip of Remus’s tongue darted out to wet them. It was an unconscious gesture, but it sent a fresh wave of heat straight to Sirius’s groin. His own cock, long dormant, began to stir, pressing against the rough denim of his jeans. The need was sudden and overwhelming. He wanted to close the distance between them, to feel those lips against his, to taste the man he’d been circling his entire life.

The world narrowed to the space of a single breath. The scent of old parchment, Remus’s skin, and the sharp tang of dittany filled his senses. He saw Remus begin to lean forward, a fractional, almost imperceptible shift of his weight in the chair. It was happening. After all this time, after Azkaban and loss and this godforsaken house, it was finally happening. Sirius’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, desperate rhythm. He prepared to meet him, to surge up from his knees and finally take what he’d wanted for so long.

Then, the sound of footsteps.

Heavy and deliberate, coming down the hall toward the library.

The spell shattered.

Remus flinched back as if he’d been burned, snatching his arm away from Sirius’s grasp. The loss of contact was a physical shock, leaving Sirius’s hand feeling cold and empty. Color flooded Remus’s pale cheeks, a dark, embarrassed flush. He wouldn’t meet Sirius’s eyes, staring instead at a fixed point on the bookshelf behind him.

Sirius scrambled to his feet, his own body thrumming with frustrated energy. The footsteps paused outside the library door, followed by the low murmur of Molly Weasley’s voice talking to Tonks. They weren’t coming in. But it didn’t matter. The moment was gone, obliterated. The fragile, charged intimacy had been replaced by a tense, awkward silence. Sirius stood there, his body still aching with a need that had nowhere to go, staring at the side of Remus’s face, a chasm of unspoken things now gaping between them once more.