Kink: Drug use, Oral sex, Prostitution, Suicide wish.
Challenge: LMoM 2008: Day 9
Words: 714
Summary: Sometimes all you have is your sense of self. And sometimes, there is nothing.
Notes: The kinks are not so much 'kinks' as they are 'warnings.' This is dark and angsty and basically smut-free, because Aylix had a shitty day, and couldn't bring herself to write pr0n.
Sometimes Remus doesn't understand his life. Why did he survive, after all the times he should have been dead? He was attacked by a werewolf when he was barely out of nappies, but instead of dying, he just became a monster. He thinks that may be a metaphor for his life: every attack turns him into more of a monster. He doesn't notice it at first; he is simply too young. Children can be cruel, but their frame of reference is so narrow they don't really understand.
He thinks he doesn't have that kind of petty cruelty in him, and is proud of that. He is beyond the taunting and the teasing that are the hallmarks of youth. But then there is Snape, with his too-large nose and his greasy hair and his worn, dirty clothes. He is a favored target of the Gryffindors, simply because he is a Slytherin, and that is the natural order from time immemorial, that lion and serpent be forever at odds. And this is when Remus realizes that he is perhaps more cruel, because he sees the inequity in the situations, but makes no attempt to change things.
Then the war comes, and with it a bone-chilling terror. Any friend might be a spy, and any comment may be misconstrued. Remus is reminded of the 'witch hunts' he learned about in Muggle Studies, friends and neighbors and even families turning on each other to save their own lives. He thinks this is cruel as well, but he knows that to change it would take more than just his efforts. So he sits back and allows it to happen, and then it is he they turn on, the neighbors of his childhood, ready to destroy him for being something they fear, despite his never having harmed another. He runs away, taking only the clothes on his back, and knows he can never return for longer than it takes to Apparate in, gather a few possessions, and leave again.
He turns to prostitution to survive, turning tricks in filthy alleys, giving blowjobs behind dumpsters to afford the next day's meal. Somewhere along the way, he began to be like them, the children who tease and taunt, the adults who belittle and degrade, the petty cruelties adding up to form the monster he became.
One full moon night, it all became too much. All the anxiety and self-loathing Remus felt bled over to the wolf side of the miserable existence he inhabited. He woke up covered in blood, with no recollection of how he came to be there in that field.
Sometimes Remus doesn't understand why he survived. Why, when so many others have died, is he still around. He doesn't ask why he lived, because he knows he isn't, not really. He has merely survived, while other, better people have fallen, have gone never to return. Every night, he wonders if this will be the night a john gets too rough and kills him. Every night, he wonders if he'll still be here to see the sunrise. So far, he has been. So far, he still survives. But sometimes, he thinks it's too much to bear, thinks about scoring some smack and ridding the world of his pathetic existence. Sometimes, he thinks it would be a relief to meet his end. Sometimes, he thinks there is nothing to live for and nothing to lose.