Remus Lupin + Eliot Black-Lupin
PG/mentions of kidnapping | Complete
The first thing El realised when he opened his eyes was that he wasn’t in the...holding cell place any more. He didn’t immediately recognise where he was, mostly because there was so much damn chaos - people were bleeding, things were beeping and there were a lot of moans, panicked voices and demands from doctors and nurses alike to bring this and fetch that. He felt like he’d been hit by a ten ton truck, but other than that- well, he was...mostly okay. Dizzy, achy and nauseous, but okay.
Wait. They were back in Atlantis. Back in Atlantis? So they’d rescued them? Everything was colourful and nobody was yelling weird questions at them, but he still wasn’t entirely sure it was real, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. It could have just been another mirage, right? Something COS wanted them to see to...mess with their heads or renew their spirits or something. Or, he was just being paranoid - regardless, he stopped caring when he saw a familiar face across the room, seemingly looking for something in the crowds.
He jumped up at the sight, his legs briefly failing him from misuse but- fuck it, he didn’t have it in him to care at that moment. He pulled the things monitoring him from his arms and ran to Remus, wrapping his arms around him with a strangled noise of relief. “Holy fuck, dad.”
“Hey, hey, slow down,” Remus told him as he stumbled back a little. It was sheer luck that he just happened to be there when Eliot had popped out of bed, rather than halfway across Atlantis. They’d all been hovering on and off, and now Remus was really glad he’d been close by. It meant that there wasn’t just a flurry of unfamiliar faces to greet Eliot. Remus knew all too well what it was like to wake up alone.
Once he got his balance back, he leaned into the hug and held on tightly, resting one of his hands on the back of Eliot’s head like his mother used to do with him after a rough full moon. “You’re safe now, I’ve got you.”
El wasn't going to cry. He was a grown ass adult who definitely didn't cry, but- then he was laughing. It was inappropriate and desperate-sounding in a way as he buried his face into Remus’ shoulder, arms tight around his dad's waist. “'m sorry,” he breathed as he pulled back, wiping at the tears that had welled in his eyes anyway. “I'm- I swear, I was good at this,” he murmured. “I dunno what happened, but-” he took a shaky breath, smiling at Remus. He was back. He was in one piece, physically and- surprisingly, mentally.
“How's mum and dad? And Hope? Are they here?”
Remus was sure that he could’ve held onto his son forever if Eliot had let him. Was this what he’d always heard about, the instantaneous sort of unconditional love you felt the moment you met your child? He wanted to take all of El’s worries away. He wanted to smooth the concern from his face and take everything on himself.
Instead, he brushed his hand over Eliot’s hair. “We’re good. Worried about you. They’ll be up here shortly. How are you? Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
El forced a smile on his face, because he was fine. Physically. And...he was holding it together better than he ever thought he would, but that didn’t mean he was fine fine. “I’m okay. They weren’t exactly- uh, nice, but the worst they did was poke us and inject us with shit,” he glanced back to the monitors he probably should have been connected to and decided against it. If COS had wanted them dead, they would have killed them. “None of us had powers, it was- it was weird,” half of his mental power was going to holding his own back right now without his wristbands, too.
“I might be an anxious mess, but I’m a resilient anxious mess. You raised me well.”
Hearing that COS had injected them with anything made Remus’s hackles rise, though he tried to keep that off his face as much as he could. He wasn’t sure how successful he was at that, but he hoped that, at the very least, Eliot wouldn’t think the tension was directed at him.
What he tried to focus on instead was that his son was alive, even if he wasn’t all fine emotionally-speaking. Remus doubted anyone would be after their ordeal; he couldn’t blame Eliot for being any sort of anxious mess. “Like father like son, isn’t that what they say?” Remus joked, but it seemed it was a lot more true than he’d ever anticipated. He saw so much of himself in Eliot’s mannerisms. It warmed his heart, even when he knew he should’ve been cross with himself for passing on his many insecurities.
“I am so incredibly proud of you,” Remus added, his voice breaking a little with emotion.
Eliot was still clinging to Remus like a limpet. He was determined not to be clingy, but he just needed some kind of comfort right then - he'd always felt a bit like a black sheep in the family because of how extroverted almost everybody else was even though they'd never made it an issue, he was just… Jealous, really. He'd wanted to prove he could do shit without being coddled and he'd ended up kidnapped.
“I don't- I don't get why. Because of me and the others, everybody else got attacked,” he murmured, looking around at the people still in bed from being in comas or being injured in the battle he'd heard about. “I just- I just wanted to do something right for once.”
It broke Remus’s heart to hear Eliot say that about himself - much like how it must have broken the hearts of anyone who loved him to hear him doubt himself and his own abilities, his own contributions.
“Eliot,” he started, his voice soft and gentle and warm. Whenever he wasn’t sure how he should act around his children, he found inspiration in what was most comforting from his own childhood and how his mother acted. “It isn’t your fault. This? All of this is because of COS, not because of anything you did. I’m proud of you because you are brave. Because you followed your heart and did what you thought was the right thing, and because you survived.”
El sniffed, smiling a little wryly. “Pa, I kinda feel like surviving is the bare minimum that can be expected from any human being,” he murmured, pulling away to wipe his face on his sleeve. He still felt shitty, but he'd learned a long time ago that Remus more than anybody was at risk of blaming himself for El acting like this and he didn't want him to think that, especially not now. “That's also- also really cheesy,” he glanced to the door, taking a deep breath.
“Hope was mad at me for going. She's gonna be mad at me for this too, I think. I'm-” he looked down, a brief wave of panic coming over him when he saw that the sleeves of his gown were singed. He needed his bracelets back sooner rather than later. “I just don't really know what to do. I don't feel ill. I don't need to rest.”
“She’s going to be relieved you’re okay,” Remus said quickly, though at the back of his mind, he agreed that Hope would probably still be angry. Both of those things could exist simultaneously, and although he wouldn’t say so to Eliot, Remus didn’t think he could blame her for it.
He took a step back, but he didn’t take his hand off Eliot. He only shifted so he was resting his hand on his son’s shoulder instead. While technically, Eliot could probably check himself out against medical advice, it probably wouldn’t reflect well on any future attempts to be a field agent. He could feel Eliot’s anxiety rolling off him, and Remus understood. He’d always hated healers, too. He’d always felt so vulnerable, so much on display.
“You still need to get cleared by the healers, Eliot. But I’ll be right here the whole time, yeah? And your mum and dad’ll be here soon, too.”
“She is, but- I think even you know how she is and we’ve only been here a month,” he smiled. They’d fallen into the weird role of ‘same-age parents’ ridiculously well, considering - he knew it was weird and he still felt like he was the ‘wrong son’ now that Teddy was here, but that was more on him than anything. “You’re- a really good dad. I mean that. I’m sorry I’m, y’know. I probably shouldn’t have gone.”
He sat back down heavily on the bed, shrugging off his jacket to hide the singing only to wince when the fabric brushed against the carving on his shoulder. “...Uh, am I- imagining things?”
Hearing Eliot say that meant more than Remus could say. He’d known that he never got to be a father to Teddy, so he hadn’t known, when they first met, how he should act or what Teddy expected from him. That had been doubly true with the twins, who’d known him in an entirely different part of his life. “We’ll just put in some work so you’re more sure of yourself next time you’re in the field,” Remus promised. He didn’t want to tell Eliot he shouldn’t ever try again; that would be counterproductive. What they could do, however, was prepare. He imagined Julia would appreciate that, too.
Remus nudged his son gently so he could get a better look at what Eliot was referring to, and he pulled the fabric away from Eliot’s shoulder. “No, you’re not,” Remus confirmed with a frown. “This wasn’t here before?”
Eliot shook his head quickly in response to that, looking down at the carving. “No,” he murmured. “Is it a flower? Are you serious? I get- kidnapped and they carve a fucking flower into me?” His voice was getting higher pitched with each word descending into vague hysteria, caught somewhere between laughing and crying because frankly, this was all insane. He’d held it together all through them being held in the tiny room together and he had been so determined not to lose it in front of his dad of all people, but apparently the concept of having a permanent goddamn flower on his arm was just too much for his brain to comprehend at that moment.
“It isn’t fair, I know,” Remus told him. None of it was. While he was grateful that being brought to Atlantis to fight COS gave Sirius back to him and allowed them and Julia to create a family, so much of what they were being forced to deal with wasn’t fair. Remus had already lost everything in one war; he didn’t want to lose his friends and family a second time.
He brushed his hand over Eliot’s hair gently, wanting to comfort his son but not knowing where to start. “They must have a reason for it,” he added quietly. “If we can figure it out, maybe we can use it against them.”
Eliot took a shaky breath - he was somewhat used to bringing himself down from panic attacks (or something close to them, in this case), staying silent for a moment. He felt ridiculous, like a child or something - and it really wasn’t fair to shove all of this on Remus because he wasn’t a dad yet. He was only their dad because they were here - they weren’t even close to being born.
“Sorry,” he murmured after a moment, rubbing his hands over his face. “I don’t- it’s not your problem to deal with, really. I can’t just pile stuff on you.”
Of all the things Eliot could have inherited from Remus, his crippling insecurity wasn’t one that Remus wished to pass on. He didn’t want Eliot to think that he couldn’t lean on him for support. He knew what it was like to feel like he was alone in the world; the last thing he wanted was for Eliot to pull away now.
“Eliot,” Remus began, his voice soft and gentle, “you can always pile things on me. Any time you need to. As much as you need to. That’s what family is for. My mother, your grandmother, she taught me that.”
He smiled up at him in a slightly twitchy manner, looking back down at his hands and clenching them into fists. “You didn’t exactly ask for all of this, dad. I know it’s gotta be a lot when you suddenly have three kids who aren’t young enough to be your kids yet that have a slew of their own problems,” he pushed his hands into his lap, grimacing. “For one, they took my dampening bracelets. I- need some more. To suppress my magic,” he added, unable to really meet his eyes at that. “I don’t want to blow this place up. Please.” While it was true that Remus hadn’t asked for it, it was something he’d wanted for as long as he could remember: a family, people who loved him unconditionally, despite his furry problem. It was something he thought he’d never have, so he didn’t mind meeting Eliot, Hope and Teddy at all. On the contrary, it healed a part of him, deep inside.
What Eliot was saying was a big concern, though. “What do you mean? Suppress your magic?” Remus was puzzled. Why would Eliot want to do that? Magic was as natural of a part of him as anything else. Remus knew a little about what suppressing something inate in himself felt like. “Why do you need to do that?” Had they not taught him?
“Well- god. I mean, of course you don’t know, you haven’t been there yet. I kinda almost blew up the house when I was a kid and it happened a lot when I had meltdowns so I eventually got some people at magic tech support to make me something to stop it. It was meant to be only temporary, but it helped a lot so I kinda kept them. Hope’s always been the one who’s good at magic anyway,” he rolled up his sleeves, briefly showing the burn scars he’d gotten. “Because they’re magical they’re not as easy to get rid of as like- regular ones. Atlantis is basically a paradise back home so it’s not like I need magic.”
Remus could’ve sworn he felt his heart stutter in his chest. That was the only solution they’d thought of? Dampeners? The only answer was for Eliot to repress part of himself?
But he understood, too, the desperate need to control a part of himself that was so often out of control. He understood the helplessness and the fear that at any second, something might go wrong. But as grateful as he was that the potion gave him back his life and allowed him some semblance of security that he didn’t have before, he still felt resentful that he even needed something like that to shut the wolf down.
He laid his hand on Eliot’s wrist, just briefly. “I’ll find you some more, but --” Grief mingled with concern on his face, and a touch of anger at his future self, too. “Then we’ll practice and find a way for you to take control of yourself, because no one should be afraid of themselves all the time. I’m -- I’m sorry we never -- we should have done better by you.”
“Hey- no, no. Don’t talk like that. I refused it,” he couldn’t get into the stupid sibling jealousy he always felt because it hadn’t been their fault and he didn’t want him to think it was their fault, or Hope’s or even Teddy’s. He just felt woefully inadequate next to them and all of the people, kid or not, in Atlantis that had amazing powers and precision-perfect control over the ‘gifts’ they’d been given. He’d always taken a slightly more cynical view on them and he didn’t see the point in training if he couldn’t be the best or if he’d always be seen as the worst, so he poured his energy into other things.
“You tried. All of you tried to push me into practicing and I hated being babied like that and I hate the idea of having to learn magic for children from children’s books. There’s tens of people here who can do magic far better than I can, so I don’t see why it’s needed when I can like- be good at tactics, or be physically strong,” he was fairly sure his magic somehow contributed to his physical power after the first time he was angry enough to punch a sandbag right off of the hook at the gym, but they’d never really needed to test that.
“It’s not --” For children, Remus wanted to say, but if that was how Eliot saw the world he came from, Remus didn’t know how he would begin to unpack that. Instead, he closed his eyes and tried to clear his head. He was disappointed that Eliot would think that was a valid excuse to give up when it was quite clear that he had incredible natural potential at his disposal, if he’d nearly blown up a house, and he was disappointed that he’d obviously not done enough to encourage the boy earlier. He didn’t want to argue with Eliot, though, especially not right then, not when they’d just gotten him back.
After a moment, resolved to just letting Eliot have what he wanted and working it out with Sirius and Julia and Hope later, Remus opened his eyes. He felt a little deflated, like he’d lost a fight he hadn’t even known he’d been fighting. “You think our magic comes naturally to us, but that’s not true. We’ve all had to work at it,” he said quietly. “And it’s never been easy.” He sighed. “Do you have any spare bracelets in your room?”
He didn’t argue any further, folding his hands into his lap. The idea of learning kid’s spells from the start like a baby learning how to hold a wand for the first time made him wince. It was embarrassing to be so damn far behind everybody else that he just opted not to once he had gotten to a certain point, and it sort of seemed to be working for him. Sort of.
“I know, but it’s like- there’s so much else going on and I can do anything. I just really enjoy doing what I do which is...being a barista and making people coffee. It never gets ridiculously busy and everybody knows each other so it’s really kinda cozy,” he shrugged slightly. “And- no, I don’t. Have spares, I mean. I used to have some but they didn’t come with me.”
“All right,” Remus conceded. He pursed his lips. If Eliot wanted to do something else with his life… well, Remus wasn’t about to stand in the way of what made him happy. Even if it didn’t involve magic. That was okay. Not everyone in his world had the same skill set, and that was okay.
“We’ll see about getting some made, in that case. But -- listen, the only thing I really need you to consider is what happens if someone takes them again or they become damaged, or their effects negated, and you don’t have a back-up plan.” Thinking about how close they came to losing Eliot in the first place, and the likelihood that he would face danger in the field again and be wholly unprepared to use magic to defend himself, it made Remus feel like there was a block of ice sitting in his stomach. “We can’t lose you, Eliot. So you need to be able to defend yourself and your team if you’re putting yourself out in the field, full stop. With or without the bracelets. You don’t have to learn to be better than everyone else. Just enough to live without worrying about the what-ifs.” Eliot deserved that freedom, at the very least.
Eliot wanted to rebuff that by saying he was fine, he was going to be fine and they worried too much - but he had the empathy to remember that he hadn’t known him for nineteen years at this point and he couldn’t just...get defensive and hide away without Remus thinking it was his fault or that Eliot was just being a douchebag.
“I can defend myself. Physically. I know how to use weapons,” sort of, anyway, “and I’ve done hand-to-hand combat in the gyms. I know that isn’t magic but a lot of people do get by without magic here just fine. The only thing I need to know how to do is to stop- blowing up or stop, like...anger responses in whatever magic I do have. If I’m only ever going to be mediocre, I don’t see the point in training past just being able to control myself.”
“How can you know that you’ll only ever be mediocre if you won’t train?” Remus countered. “The fact that your raw, untrained power almost blew up a house? That tells me you have more going on in there than you believe. All I did the first time I showed magic was make books fly around because I wanted my mother to read to me.” He shrugged. It hadn’t been that remarkable, and somehow he’d ended up being a professor at Hogwarts. Somehow he’d grown into someone that Harry’s yearmates admired, someone who could lead the Order in a new war. “It’s good that you know those other things, because wizards only ever just relied upon magic and nothing else, but you wouldn’t have asked for new ones if you knew how to channel it in some other way. Please, Eliot, just --” He was well aware that his voice was taking on a desperate, pleading tone, and he shoved his hands into his pockets so Eliot couldn’t see how much they were shaking. “Just think about it.”
Eliot sighed, crossing his legs on the bed. “It wasn’t the first time. I don’t- even really remember what the first time was. We were both kinda catastrophic in a way, but Hope decided to train and I decided not to,” he shrugged. “It’s...not really- if you insist I will, but I’m not going to like it,” he frowned. “Doing my ABCs when everybody else is writing a dissertation on Shakespeare.”
Remus bit back his first thoughts -- that Eliot was missing the point, that Eliot could be writing a dissertation on Shakespeare too -- and then shook his head. “I just think there has to be a path that’s better for you than the one you’re on right now. But by all means, do what you feel you must. A father who’s only old enough to be your older brother can’t exactly make you do anything.”
He didn’t know how else to explain it, didn’t know how to make Eliot understand that he was doing more harm than good, didn’t know how to make Eliot believe that he was just as worthy as anyone else. He pulled a hand out and touched Eliot’s knee briefly. “I’ll go see what I can find to help you. If your mum and dad show up -- tell them I’ll be back soon. And I think you should talk to them about this, too. It should come from you.”
“If it helps, nobody could make us do anything anyway,” he offered him a small smile, gently nudging Remus with his shoulder. “Besides- even if you’re...younger, you’re still my dad if you want to be. I can’t really see you as an older brother when I grew up with pretty much that exact face,” it was just like having him from when he was a kid, really. It made him feel weirdly nostalgic and fuzzy inside when the conversation wasn’t as awkward. “I keep expecting you to read me a story and tuck me in with a kiss on the forehead.”
“I’ll- talk to them, it’s just...not as easy, I guess. Hope knows and she’s pretty consistently pissed about it, if that helps at all,” he hesitated, but at the hand on his knee he decided it wasn’t acceptable and pulled Remus in for a hug, squeezing him tightly. “Sorry. I promise this won’t happen again,” not that he could actually promise that in reality, but he could at least try.
It took no extra encouragement for Remus to return the hug, holding on just as tight. “I can still read to you and tuck you in at night,” he insisted, “any time you want.” He hoped it wouldn’t come across like he was mocking Eliot, because he really meant it. As excited as he was to know he’d have those moments in the future, a part of him didn’t want to have to wait.
Before he pulled back, he pressed a kiss into Eliot’s hair, mirroring the way his mother used to, so many years ago. “We love you.” He prayed Eliot knew that. “I love you. Always. You will always be one of the best parts of my life. Nothing can ever change that.”
Eliot snorted, but it was a tempting idea for when he was sick and felt like a pathetic kid again. “I love you too,” he smiled, the kiss to his head familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. He pulled back just a little, patting Remus awkwardly on the shoulder to let him go and- well, hopefully find something to prevent any awkward fires in the hospital, but considering how emotional he was being, he’d held on...fairly well so far. Maybe he was better at masking than he thought.
“Thanks. For coming here,” he smiled, letting go of Remus so that he could get out of the hospital.