He Comforted Me After My Breakdown, So I Pinned Him To The Wall And Claimed The Man I've Wanted For A Decade

The long, skeletal fingers of the Black family portraits seemed to press in on him, their painted eyes following every shift of his weight in the uncomfortable chair. Sirius hated these meetings. Hated the stale air of the dining room, the oppressive gloom of the house, and the constant, grating presence of Severus Snape. But most of all, he hated watching Remus fade.

His eyes were fixed on him now, tracing the lines of exhaustion carved around his mouth and eyes. Remus sat opposite him, hunched slightly over the table as if the weight of his own bones was too much to bear. His amber eyes, usually so warm and intelligent, were clouded with a deep, weary pain. His jumper, worn thin at the elbows, couldn't hide how much weight he'd lost. He was all sharp angles and hollows, a ghost of the man he’d been. A fresh scar, still pink and angry, sliced from his temple down to his jaw, disappearing into the collar of his shirt. It was new since the last time he’d been back from his mission among Greyback’s pack. Sirius’s hands clenched into fists under the table, his knuckles white. Every new mark on Remus’s skin felt like a personal failure, a fresh brand of guilt seared into his own soul.

He wanted to cross the room, drag Remus from that chair, and lock him away in a room upstairs where nothing and no one could touch him again. The urge was a physical thing, a hot, possessive coil tightening in his gut. It was an old, familiar feeling, one he’d been wrestling with since they were boys.

Dumbledore was speaking, his voice a low drone, but Sirius couldn’t focus on the words. All his attention was snagged on the way Remus rubbed a hand over his face, his fingers trembling slightly.

"And what of Lupin's sources?" Snape's voice cut through the room, oily and sharp. "Can we truly be certain of their loyalties? He spends a great deal of time with these… creatures. One might begin to wonder where his own sympathies lie."

Something inside Sirius snapped. The low-simmering rage he lived with daily erupted into a white-hot inferno. He was on his feet before he even registered the decision to move, the legs of his chair scraping violently against the floor.

"You shut your greasy mouth, Snape," Sirius snarled, his voice dangerously low. Every eye in the room turned to him. "You haven't got the first clue what he's sacrificing. While you're brewing your potions and playing spy, he's living in the filth you wouldn't dare step in. Don't you ever," he took a step forward, his hand reaching for the wand in his pocket, "question his loyalty in this house again."

The room was silent, thick with shock. He could feel Moody's magical eye trained on him, could see Molly Weasley's lips pressed into a thin, disapproving line. But he didn't care. He looked at Remus, whose own eyes were wide, a flicker of something unreadable—shock, maybe something more—in their tired depths. The sight of it only stoked the fire in Sirius’s chest. He would burn the world down to keep that look off Remus’s face.

The meeting broke apart under Dumbledore’s placating tones, but the tension lingered, clinging to the grimy wallpaper like a second skin. Sirius stalked from the room without another word, the rage still a hot, metallic taste in his mouth. He spent the next few hours pacing his bedroom, the image of Remus’s wide, startled eyes burned into his mind.

Later, long after the house had fallen into a strained silence, a thirst he couldn't quench drove him downstairs. The kitchen was a cavern of shadows, lit only by a sliver of moonlight through the high, dirty window. And Remus was there.

He sat at the long wooden table, just as he had in the dining room, shoulders slumped forward. A chipped ceramic mug was cradled in his long-fingered hands, steam rising in a faint, ghostly ribbon. He looked up as Sirius entered, his expression guarded, tired. The fight seemed to have drained the last of his energy.

Sirius leaned against the doorframe, shoving his hands into his pockets. The silence stretched, thick with everything they never said.

"Look," Sirius started, his voice rougher than he intended. "About earlier. In the meeting."

Remus just watched him, his amber eyes shadowed. He gave a small, almost imperceptible shake of his head. "You didn't have to, Sirius."

"Yes, I did," Sirius bit out, the anger flaring again, but this time it was directed at the entire world, at Snape, at Dumbledore, at the war that was grinding Remus down to nothing. "I couldn't just sit there and let him… I can't stand it." The admission felt raw, torn from a place deep inside him he kept locked away. "Seeing you like this. The way you look. It’s…" He couldn't find the right word. Wrecked. Gutted. He gestured vaguely, a helpless flick of his hand. "I hate it."

Remus’s gaze softened for a fraction of a second. He looked down into his tea, his knuckles white where he gripped the mug. "We all have our parts to play." His voice was low, scraped raw.

"This is more than a part, Moony." The old nickname slipped out, tasting of nostalgia and regret. "It's killing you."

The air grew heavy again, charged with the ghosts of a dozen other arguments, a dozen other times one of them had pushed too far and the other had pulled away. Sirius knew he was on that edge now. He pushed off the doorframe, intending to retreat, to go back upstairs before he said something he couldn't take back.

The path to the door took him right past Remus’s chair. The space was tight, cluttered with the detritus of the Weasleys. As he moved past, the back of his hand brushed against Remus’s. It was a fleeting contact—the rough skin of his knuckles against the back of Remus’s fingers, which were cool despite the hot mug they held.

A jolt, sharp and electric, shot up Sirius’s arm. It wasn't just warmth; it was a living current that went straight to his chest, making his heart stumble over a beat. For an instant that felt like an eternity, all he could feel was the point of contact, the texture of Remus's skin against his. His breath caught in his throat. He saw Remus’s fingers twitch, a tiny, reflexive motion. Then the moment was gone. Sirius pulled his hand back as if burned and strode from the kitchen without looking back, the phantom heat of that single, careless touch branded onto his skin.

Sleep was a lost cause. Sirius lay on his back in the lumpy bed, staring up at the water-stained ceiling of his childhood bedroom. The darkness felt alive, crawling with the ghosts of this house. But it wasn't his mother's portrait or the lingering dark magic that kept him awake. It was the memory of Remus’s skin. The brief, accidental press of his knuckles against Remus’s fingers had ignited something he’d spent twelve years in Azkaban trying to freeze to death. The sensation was still there, a phantom warmth tingling on his hand, a stark contrast to the chill that had settled deep in his bones.

He threw the covers off, the frustration too much to contain in stillness. The floorboards were cold beneath his bare feet as he began to pace, a caged animal in a room that had always been his first prison. The house was quiet, but it was a waiting silence, heavy and suffocating. He needed air, or a drink, or something to quiet the noise in his head.

He moved out into the hallway, the shadows clinging to him like a second skin. He didn't have a destination, just a need to walk until the restlessness burned itself out. His feet, however, seemed to have their own agenda. They carried him down the corridor, past the shrieking portrait of his mother covered by its threadbare curtain, and stopped outside the door to Remus’s room.

It was slightly ajar, a dark sliver in the deeper darkness of the hall. And from within, a sound drifted out that made the hair on his arms stand on end. A soft, choked whimper. A sound of pure, animal pain.

Sirius’s heart hammered against his ribs. Every protective instinct screamed at him. He didn’t think. He pushed the door open, the old hinges groaning in protest.

The room was spartan, bare of any personal touch save for a stack of worn books on the nightstand. Moonlight cut a pale rectangle across the floor and the bed, illuminating the scene within. Remus was tangled in the thin sheets, his body twisting as if trying to escape an invisible captor. His head thrashed on the pillow, his brow slick with sweat that gleamed in the dim light. Mumbled, broken words escaped his lips, too garbled to understand but laced with a desperate terror.

Sirius stood frozen in the doorway, a spectator to a private agony. He wanted to go to him, to shake him awake, to pull him out of whatever hell his mind had conjured. But that would be a confession. It would be an admission of everything he felt, everything he saw in Remus’s face that went beyond friendship. It was a line he wasn't sure they could ever uncross.

So he did the only thing he could. He crept into the room, silent as a shadow, and pulled the rickety wooden chair from the corner to the side of the bed. He sat, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and just watched. He watched the way Remus’s scarred hands clenched and unclenched in the sheets, the way his jaw was tight with strain. He watched the play of fear across the familiar, beloved features of his friend's face. The longing in his chest was no longer a dull throb; it was a sharp, physical ache, a blade twisting under his ribs. He wanted to reach out, to smooth the lines of pain from Remus’s forehead, to feel the warmth of his skin again, deliberately this time.

Slowly, as Sirius kept his silent vigil, the thrashing subsided. The frantic muttering quieted. Remus’s breathing, which had been ragged and shallow, deepened into a steady, even rhythm. The tension left his body, and he finally settled into a true, exhausted sleep. Sirius didn’t move. He stayed there in the chair, a sentinel in the dark, watching over the only good thing left in his world and aching with a love he was terrified would destroy them both.

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.