Title: Nowhere Man
By Silver Rising
Silver_Rising@hotmail.com
Rating: R for Remus/OFC and Remus/Sirius
Summary: Remus centered-fic that takes place roughly in the late autumn of 1983. Remus deals with the aftermath of Halloween Night 1981 in the best way he knows how; by just going about a dead end existance.
Nowhere Man
By Silver Rising
The room is cold when Remus opens the door; he can feel the sting of air against his skin. He closes the door behind him. It closes heavily, the latch clicking into place with a rusty clunk. There's one window. It's small and is covered by heavy, dirty curtains that block out nearly all the light. In the dying dusk the only light that filters in the room is grey and darkened, falling in irregular patterns from the threadbare patches disguised by the thick creases of the curtains. Remus thinks the room feels like him. He sets down the worn suitcase on the bed, the aging metal frame bending inward noisily with the added weight, and he thinks it might collapse if he were to lie on it. His threadbare jacket is hung on the paint chipped hook that hangs on an angle from the wall, the bottom of it lying in the dust on the floor.
He stands in the grey light that's fallen on the creaking floorboards and looks out the small crack in the windows that's made by the curtains. There's a brick wall facing him. The bricks are chipped in the corners, weather worn and old. He thinks of the funerals, and how it rained. When they carried the coffins out the rain fell harder, and he lost his grip on James' and almost dropped it. He closes the curtain now and lies down on the bed, which shakes and bends in on itself. There's still a small patch of light on the floor. Remus watches it until it disappears, and he's left in darkness.
---
He eats downstairs in the main dining room, on a wooden table that tilts to one side. The man across the hall sits across the table from him. He has glasses, similar to James'. The man eats chips with all his meals, the greasy chips you can buy in town. He chews them with his mouth open, and asks a lot of questions. Remus' stomach turns, and he goes back to his cold stew, a thin slice of potato sitting on his spoon. He finds he's not hungry anymore. The man from across the hall asks Remus if he has any friends. Asks why he never has any visitors.
Remus pushes his chair back from the table and sets his napkin beside his bowl. He tells the man that they're dead. The next night, the man from across the hall sits at the other end of the table and gives him wary looks. As though Remus killed them himself.
---
He pays his rent late each month; leaves the money in an envelope signed John M. Black. He wishes he didn't sign it with that name, but when he gets upstairs to his room it's too late. They ask him why the rent is late. Tell him he needs to start paying on time. He tells them it's because his mother is ill. Can't keep his job that way. When he disappears for days at a time, and comes back pale, with dark circles around his eyes, they watch him. Think he's up to something. No illness in the family. Must be something else. Something illegal, maybe. He wants to tell them he's been busy being a wolf. Having his bones break and shatter and reform, having his muscles twist and rip and tear. But he apologises quietly and signs the envelope John M. Black, and a week after rent is due he slips it beneath the door and ignores the stares and questions. He's good at ignoring things.
---
The maid is young, and she has thick black hair that she puts up each morning. It's heavy, like the curtains. She wears a worn blue dress, so faded it's nearly white, and scrubs the hall outside his room when the first traces of morning are appearing, bleak and grey in the sky. She looks up at him each morning and nods her head, thick black hair brushing the top of her shoulder before she moves the rag over the floor, gathering splinters.
The first time he takes her is when he comes back early from a cold lunch, and she's still cleaning his room. She's scrubbing at the floor in his room, the rag nearly black. He watches from the doorway. Her short dress is hiked up, still young thigh exposed. Remus only watches her hair, and the way the ends brush over her collar and shoulder. He grabs her around the waist and she stands easily, and then they're at the bed, and it shakes beneath their combined weight, the frame jerking. They don't bother with undressing. Remus hikes her dress up and then, with shaking hands, unfastens his trousers. When he pushes into her she grips his shoulders hard, her nails digging into his skin. He presses his face into the pillow, cheek against the bottom of her dark strands. It's quiet in the room, the only noise the shaking of the bedframe, and when he comes he exhales sharply, just a quick release of air. He doesn't know if she comes or not. Once he's regained what's left of himself he sits up and tugs his trousers up, while she settles her dress and slips out of the room.
---
The next time he makes her put her hair down, long and black as it spills down her shoulders. She reaches for his shirt but he pushes into her before she can open it, and then she drops her arms and he moves. It's steady, not hard, not soft, just steady thrusts. Over and over. He buries his face in her hair, inhaling the dark scent, but it's not right. It's musty. Not musky. Smells like afternoon, not midnight. When he's done he pulls back and wipes the sweat from his brow. She lies still for a minute, gazing up at him, before she sits up and swings her legs over the side of the creaking bed, pulling her dress down over her lap. When she leaves she closes the door quietly. By that time the last of the light has seeped from the room, and Remus is left in the heavy darkness.
He takes her once or twice a week, when he catches her lingering in his room. He always makes her take her hair down, and always presses his face against it as he moves inside of her. He stays quiet, concentrating only on the burn inside him. It's wrong but it's easy, and something has to get him through the day. When they're done she looks up at him, while he fastens his trousers, and then she leaves, straightening out her dress. He's never sure exactly when he'll take her, but he knows it'll always be the same.
The last time she asks if he knows her name. He ignores her and slides his hand into her hair. She's breathing heavily, and asks again. Asks him to say her name. When he comes he chokes on a gasp and whispers Sirius. She doesn't come, but he pulls back quickly anyway, and she leaves before her dress is properly settled.
---
The next day he packs his sparse belongings in his worn suitcase. He opens the old door and shuts it with a dull clank behind him, and walks down the stairs. No one's in the hall. He slips his last rent under the door with his envelope. It's signed Remus. He leaves, and as he walks down the street, threadbare coat catching the same chill that had filled his room, bathed in the same grey nothingness that filtered over his floor, he doesn't look back
END