Quo Animo:

The first and second bits.

Remus

It's no big deal. I follow a very strict moral code and none of the guidelines have been breached. I haven't kill anyone, I haven't hurt anyone, nothing has been irreparably broken... I just don't see the problem, here. Over and over again, these words race through my mind at three hundred thousand meters per second. This more eloquent greeting, however, is running through my head somewhat too fast for my mouth to catch. My actual response to being interrupted during this private activity is limited to your name. "Sirius—"

You slowly take stock of the situation. The disbelief is as evident as the individual thought processes that run through your head. You glance away as if this is just a dream, couldn't possibly be anything other than a dream, and looking away will make me disappear.

No, Sirius my good lad. Your eyes did not and do not deceive you. In front of you is in fact your dear Moony, and he is in fact wielding a shard of glass, and he is in fact using it to slice at the tender skin on his wrists. But he's not trying to kill himself. No, I swear I'm not. And, let's face it; you never would have known if you hadn't been here instead of in class where you're supposed to be. Sure, my bed isn't exactly the most private place to indulge, but it's not like I'm going to cut myself in the bathroom.

Just so you know, this isn't because of any emotional turmoil or an inability to cope with my so obviously terrible life. It's because I like it. This is how I get off. You grab your prick and wank, I grab my glass and slice. It's really quite a wonderful thing, really. But my flailing lips still fail to grasp the words. And so I'm stuck floundering, just looking at you. It's heartbreaking. You're an open book, Sirius, and I'm an avid reader. I just can't help but notice that small flare of a nostril, that miniscule quiver of your lip, the thin line of light glinting off of the liquid rimming your eyes. I can imagine that you'd be a pretty crier since you're a pretty everything else, but that is the last thing that I ever want to see. And because I know that this is making you sad, I set the glass aside.

And then, suddenly, my mouth can work again, but you've already started talking. "Moony," your voice breaks. My heart cracks in half. Your mouth moves but no sound comes out. You reach your hands out and touch my arm. Your fingers slide up to my wrist where you gently wrap your fingers around the skin being careful to not touch the areas that have been cut. You look at me, and I know that you don't understand. You look at the bleeding cuts, and I know that you can't understand. I can't explain it to you in a way that will make you understand. I've never thought of myself as misunderstood since I met you, but now it's starting to all come back.

I hate it.

I hate it even more that it might make me cry. You might think that the tears have something to do with the blood running from my wrists when they wouldn't. They'd have nothing to do with the cuts, and everything to do with you.

Your easy ways have always calmed me. You have always had a moment for me when things got to be overwhelming. I could talk, you could listen, we could both be something more than what we were. And it was nice. Wonderful, even. But I can feel that being over now. This very knowledge is a slice in our bond to you even if not to me. It won't be the same. You'll never understand me again and I can taste it like blood in my mouth and I can feel it like salt in the shallow slices on my wrists.

And it hurts, but I don't like it.

"Sirius," and you look at me with those eyes. Those beautiful, broken eyes. And, of its own volition, my hand rises. It cups your cheek. Then come the words, but they're not the ones I want. Instead, it's a cliché; one that I would have avoided if I had thought about it for even an instant.

"It's not what you think."

Mistake.

We were both in something of a trance before, but this snaps you right out of it. Now you're not broken on the outside, just angry. If you were steel and I had caused a crack, your anger would be a super heated oven, welding you back together. But it only heals the cosmetic rift, and even then it leaves a scar. There's still a crack inside that's much more difficult to mend.

Your face turns hard. Your lips thin. Your hand tightens around my wrist. I want to watch as the blood wells up in faster, larger beads, but I know that it would be a bad move. "It's not what I think?" Your other hand snatches mine from where it still is on your cheek and you hold the meat of my thumb hard enough that I can't escape, but not hard enough that I can enjoy it. "Then what is it?"

I can't tell you that I'm a masochist. I can't tell you that I think the blood is beautiful. I can't tell you that I'm addicted to cutting myself. I can't tell you that it feels better than the best hand-delivered orgasm. I just can't. My eyeballs roast inside my skull. "I can't tell you."

The hurt resonates from you loud and clear as chimes from church bells. Just like that you're not angry anymore. Now you're pleading with me and I can see it in your eyes, and I can hear it in your breath, and I can smell it in your sweat, and I can taste it from two feet away as it seeps out of your pores. "Remus, you can't do this to yourself."

Suddenly I'm the angry one. I yank my arms away from you and the hurt chimes louder. "Why the hell not? What's wrong with it? I'm not trying to kill myself if that's what you're worried about," you think you're so righteous. I can't do this to myself? If I couldn't do this to myself I wouldn't. I can't do this to you is what you mean. But you can't say that. It makes it sound like you're in control of me when you want so much to pretend you're not.

And you're angry again. "It's not about that! It's about you hurting! If this is how you have to deal with your pain there's something wrong! I thought you could fucking talk to me, but I guess you'd rather sit here and be a suicidal idiot," you're baiting me. I know you're baiting me and you know that I know. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to waste it. Instead, I accept your gauntlet—let it be the fuel that gives me the strength to tell you what you demand to know.

I force myself to calm my voice even as the fire in my chest makes my heart sprint. "I'm not hurting emotionally. I don't just let things build up, I let them go. This? This is purely physical," I let a grim smile crawl across my face when I see that the beginning of my explanation has already started to make you fall from your high, high horse. "You've heard of masochism, haven't you, Sirius?" I know you haven't, but I have to ask. It has always pissed you off when I know something you don't. "It means you like pain. It's not just an outlet, it's not something that you try to avoid because, well, it hurts. It means that you enjoy it. That you want it. Pain, that is. You seek it out," you look like I just spit in your face. Surprise. Bewilderment.

Fear.

It completely drains me of my anger-induced confidence. You drain me.

"Remus—"

I stop you with a shake of my head. I'm not done yet. I can barely bring myself to say it and the blood is starting to stain my sheets. I look you straight in the face with all the strength I can muster. "I need it. So beat me. Please. Cut me, hit me, bite me, even whip me if you want to. I don't care. I'm addicted. If I don't get it somewhere, I—" do it myself.

And I can't even finish my sentence, but it's not because I'm ashamed. Embarrassed, certainly. I'm embarrassed that you saw me like this, I'm embarrassed that I told you to hurt me, and I'm embarrassed that I actually admitted to being addicted, but I'm not ashamed of myself.

When you grab me, I stiffen until I realize that the hug you're giving me isn't a one-last-hug, but I don't wrap my arms around you in return until I feel your tears soak through my shirt at the deltoid. I know that you don't care that my arms are bleeding spots on your school uniform that we both know won't come out because blood never does.

You were never meant to find out, Sirius, and I'm sorry that you did. But I'm not sorry that I did it. I never will be. I can't promise you that I'll never do it again, but I can promise that you'll never see it. You continue to cry into my shoulder. I don't know why you're crying, but I'm not stupid enough to ask. I just let you stay there, your tears and snot being absorbed by the cotton fibers of my shirt, my arms wrapped around you, yours likewise around me.

It feels like the end of an era. The time for being children gone, the time for becoming both more and less arrived, but I know that it's just a temporary feeling: the result of my guilt at putting you through this whole ordeal.

It's inevitable that we'll be back to normal within the week.

Sirius

Fuck, Remus. We need to talk. I know that I've pretty much left you alone about the whole thing for the past week, but it just doesn't feel right. Seeking out pain like that just isn't normal. No. Normal isn't the right word. Healthy. It's not healthy. So—

You're sitting right next to me in potions and, as usual, you're studying the notes while I'm studying you. You're acting so fucking normal. Your eyes flick from the blackboard to your paper, a little worry line shows up for just a moment just above your nose. You chew on your lip. A hand rises to scratch the bit of stubble on your chin that you didn't shave off this morning because I hid your razor.

Yeah. I hid your razor. That's what this terrible, new paranoia has driven me to. I know that stopping the symptoms doesn't stop the problem, but it is a start I suppose. It's at least a way to get rid of the effects until I can come up with a real solution to your little cutting problem. I even know that you weren't even using a razor, but that doesn't mean you haven't or won't. I have to take away as many possibilities from you as I can because, otherwise, I just may lose the little bit of sanity I have.

Class is dismissed. I wait for you to gather your stuff before we leave together. We're the last ones out of the classroom and I stop you just outside the door. The sleeves of your standard uniform shirt are rolled down. You know what's coming and try to stop me, but I won't hear it.

"Sirius—" but it's futile. I ignore it when you struggle and object.

There are new cuts. Red, shallow lines running across your skin like thread. Like strings of fate, tying us together with a bond exactly as strong as blood. I look to you for an explanation like I would if I didn't already know what's going on.

"It's not a problem," you tell me.

"It's not a problem?" I don't believe you. I can't believe you. "It's hardly been a week and you've already gone and done it again. I think that's a problem," I would go on, but you cut me off with a few quick, confusing words.

"I meant the cutting, not the algolagnia."

I would give both my legs and my left hand to know what that means without having to ask, but you're not saying anything else. I shift awkwardly before I break down and ask, "What's that?"

"The addiction to pain," and you're silent again, watching me like you're afraid I'm going to break.

And I think I might. I've known you for six years and some change, and I never would have guessed this about you. I'd have never known. It was never a sneaking suspicion, never even a lurking possibility, and the news that came all over my face seven days ago is more overwhelming now than it was then. "Addiction. Are you even really sure there is such a thing?" It's the last thing I would have wanted to say, but the first thing that actually comes out my mouth. I'd say that it wasn't my fault, but who else to I have to blame?

Your eyebrows lower so far they shadow your cheekbones. You look like you want to hit me, and I would absolutely forgive you that, but you don't. Instead you clench your fists and turn to walk away. I want to let you. After my complete dickery you deserve to be able to, but instinct makes me react in ways that don't necessarily agree with my higher mental faculties.

I grab you before you can get out of reach and push your back against the wall, trapping your body with my arms. I don't want you leaving. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that."

"No, you shouldn't have," your rightly righteous answer.

"It's just—" my own uncertainty cuts me off mid-sentence as I try to find the right way to say the words, but you interrupt my thoughts before the question translates into speech.

"Why does it bother you so much?"

It's a good question. I even have an answer for it. The only problem is that I can't tell you. My problem is that you're sick. I was raised in a house where incest is practically the norm, with people I hated. They enjoyed this sort of thing, too. You know. The other side of it. And I hated them for it and despite it. So, you see? I can't tell you that this small character trait actually changes the way that I think about you, most importantly, I can't under any circumstances let you know that the words you spoke to me last week excited me in ways that I find both terrifying and arousing. So I answer, "You're my friend and I can't stand to see you hurting," It's a partial truth, and therefore a partial lie, but it's the safest option I have.

You try to push me away, but I don't allow that to happen having already figured you were going to try to get away. This is too important for me to just let you leave.

"But I like it," you insist, giving up on escape for the moment and slumping against the wall, carefully avoiding looking at me and keeping your voice low. You look uncomfortable, but you don't seem ashamed.

"But it's just the way you're dealing with an internal hurt! I see it and I think of how you might feel, not what you might feel," I've got to defend my half-truth no matter how cheesy it sounds or how much I hate myself for it later. I expect an exasperated sigh, maybe an eye roll, maybe even a chuckle. What I don't expect is for you to become so angry.

"It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH INNER TURMOIL! I'm not some STUPID KID who can't deal with his terrible life. The whole point of it, in its ENTIRETY, without leaving anything out, is that I like it. I LIKE pain. Were you not listening to what I told you the other night?"

No. I was listening. I just hoped you would have forgotten. "Take it easy, Moony. This whole idea is new to me. You can't expect me to instantly understand. I just need some time."

You shrug unsympathetically. "Experience is supposed to be the best teacher. Maybe it'll cut down your learning time if you just give it a try."

The tips of my ears start to burn. I know that I heard you right, but I couldn't be understanding correctly. "What?"

"Go ahead," you invite. "Hit me, or something. I'm not particular."

"Um," I would pay money to see the expression on my face right now. Or to take the smug look off of yours. I let go of you and step away carefully. I think that our conversation is over, but apparently you don't agree. With each step I take back you come toward me. I plan to escape the situation, but I'm cornered before I know that escape isn't an option anymore.

"Really," it's a command when you say it. If we weren't the same height, I might be able to get away, but you've got the advantage, now. "Go ahead and do something."

I'm afraid. Of you. The only time in my life that this has happened before is the first time that I saw you change into the Wolf. So I panic. My action is more one of a desperate attempt to leave than it is an endeavor to hurt you, but it only manages to accomplish the latter: I slide my fingers along your scalp, I clutch, and I pull.

You don't stagger back with the direction of the force; you just stare at me and pull slowly away, apparently not having expected me to do anything in the first place, and seeming to have come back to yourself.

But now I'm the one who's not done. Before I'm even fully aware of what I'm doing the fingers of my other hand are tangled in your hair too, and both hands are thrusting your head against the wall that I had you set against before. You're watching me carefully, but you aren't afraid. You're not afraid when I slam the rest of your body into the side of the hall with bruising force, you're not afraid when my fists clench tightly enough in your hair to rip out a few strands, you're not afraid when I lower my face and bite your neck hard enough that you start to bleed, and you're definitely not afraid when I move to give the same harsh treatment to the skin just below your ears. You gasp, and you moan, and you sigh, and there is a perfect, beautiful mingling of pain and pleasure, but there is no fear.

Remus, I think I'm starting to get this, but you've got it wrong: pain is addictive to cause, not to feel.