thattimeofthemonth | Broken on the Dawn

Broken on the Dawn

Sometimes, one just gave up on life. When there was nothing left to fight for, nothing left to live for, nothing left to even hope for. In one terribly short amount of time, he had lost... everything. The people he had come to love like family - James, Peter, Lily. Their beautiful child he had been so excited to meet, murmuring to the little one in the womb in a way that always made Lily laugh. Even his brother, his best friend, his... maybe one day they might have been something more, but then to find out in one blow that it had been Sirius who had become a traitor, whisked away to Azkaban before he could even find out why. Why he had murdered Peter, why he had told...?!

Why Sirius had said he was the traitor. But... he was all too easy to blame, wasn't he? Who else could Sirius have gotten away with blaming the leak to that everyone would immediately believe? Some people knew who shouldn't ever have, but equally, some of them were dead. He had no idea who knew anymore. What he was, what Sirius said he was... some probably believed Sirius had lied about anything, everything-- hell, he didn't even know.

So he sat waiting, staring up at the horizon as the sun fell. It was a beautiful sunset, streaking bloody red and purple across the sky, more beautiful than he felt. No one was out here nor would they be, on this desolate moor where Dumbledore, bless him, had set him up a place to be able to hide now that he was long out of school. Enough for him to recover and go back to home... but now there wasn't even that. No home, no one to go back to.

His head hung. The tears came. They hung, then fell. Every time he thought there couldn't possibly be more within him, more to wring out of his soul, they came. It hurt more than waking up tomorrow morning would, far more. The nightmares were even worse because they were glorious. James and Lily laughed in his memories, Peter squeaked and shared food, and Sirius gave him that grin and told him to come sneak out to the village with him. Then he woke to nothing.

When the moon started to crest the far hills, Remus reached down and tugged off his shoes, tossing them to the side, then did the same with his pants. It was hard not being a little used to being nude given the amount of times the boys had found him as such, but even more so when no one was around. This time, he met the moon straight on, eyes watching it as it came up. It would take away his humanity and with it, the pain that came with knowing.

What he never would have expected was that long after it happened that night - the change, the creak and crash of bone, the moments between knowing and not until Remus faded away completely and Moony cried to his namesake, the running through the heather, even a hunt that started to bring him towards morning - that something would go horribly wrong. What it was, he had no idea, couldn't know. All the wolf saw was light, smelled the reek of burnt fur, then darkness.

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There was a cot nearby - an indication he had probably planned to sleep this off in this little remote place - but Remus looked worse for wear. His skin was pasty and his eyes were closed, lips parted as he took a shuddery breath. A momentary black out or close to it. He could vaguely hear Vrenille, though it was a bit like hearing through cotton plugging up his ears, and tried to give a nod to show he was still there but wasn't even sure if he nodded. This was why this had supposed to have been return here, pass out on the cot, get back to home, get the biggest meal he could afford to regain his energy.

All of that had been forgotten proper by Vrenille's existence in it, leaving him to not even realize how badly off he was until his body noped out of the equation.

Remus tried to murmur something, not to worry he would be okay. It mostly came out, but it was clear he was dizzy and unfocused. Holding him, Vrenille would feel that while there was muscle there, this had to be a relatively strong young man, he was thinner than he looked.

Vrenille wasn't a particularly big or strong guy. He could not simply deadlift Remus, however thin he was. He could however, get him into that cot by pulling him over to it and hoisting him up. It wasn't the most graceful production, but he managed.

Laying the younger man's body down as carefully as he could and pulling the covers up over him to keep him warm, he briefly cupped Remus's cheek in his hand, looking over him with a worried furrow to his brow. Remus might have the strength of will to keep himself going right to the limits of exhaustion, but that didn't mean that Vrenille wasn't worried by the state he was in now.

Having grown up on the streets, Vrenille knew a thing or two about being cold and hungry, never managing to have quite enough. Because he'd grown up having to be pretty self-sufficient, he'd learned some coping strategies. Since then, granted, his fortunes had changed a fair bit. So while a younger him might have had a good search around the shack for something he could make to feed Remus, the older him had better options.

Reaching into his little pack, he rummaged around until he found what he was looking for--a wax-paper wrapped packet of food, which he unfolded to reveal something that looked like a protein bar but would taste much nicer--sweet and tart and fruity, with oatmeal.

Sliding an arm under Remus's shoulders to help him sit up for a moment, Vrenille held a piece of the bar for him. "Here. Eat a bit of this. It'll make you feel better."

That was definitely the better option because there wasn't much to eat in here. Or really, anything. This was the first time they had planned for him to use this shack, and it wasn't completely thought out, but normally he would have been home by now. Warm, completely passed out, and ready to wake up and devour an insane amount of food.

A low groan of half-consciousness left Remus when Vrenille lifted him, and despite the obvious logic being spoken to him, he didn't seem particularly interested in the food. Really, physically, he was starving for it after how many calories the change consumed, but his mind wasn't matching his body. Still, after a moment or two, he started to realize what was being said to him and he half-heartedly opened his lips, teeth grabbing for it if it was put in his general direction.

This, he decided, was far more miserable than being out with the pack and waking up beside them in the morning. Even the mere thought, though, made him wince ever so slightly. It would never happen again. Death, imprisonment... and here he was, living. Trying to live a life that felt like it was gone forever, slipped through his hands. What was he doing? What was the point of staying here, anywhere, when it was all gone!?

Suddenly, despite his exhaustion, Remus started to pull away from Vrenille, that warm, friendly touch. It was too much, too close to what he had lost! Stop it, damn it, hadn't he suffered enough!? Why was this stranger here, being this kind...!?

Vrenille fed Remus as much as he was willing to eat. He would have continued if the younger man hadn't pulled away from him. He didn't understand the reasons for that, of course, but it was obviously not the time to ask, nor was it the time to try and argue about it.

"Hey, ok, easy," setting the half-eaten omnomberry bar down on a little table by the bed, Vrenille eased Remus down again. "You just wanna sleep for a while? That's probably a good idea anyway." It was a rhetorical question, so he didn't expect an answer. He did, however, place a hand on Remus's head for a moment. "Just take your time, okay? I'm not going anywhere; I can wait. I'll even make sure nothing happens, so you rest easy."

It was all meant to be comforting. There was no way for him to know that any of this might be anything but. Encouraging Remus to settle just seemed to be the right idea, make him feel as safe and secure as he could. Sure, they were still veritably strangers to each other, but to Vrenille, intimacy with strangers had always been pretty much life-sustaining. Why would he conduct himself any differently now?

If Vrenille was going to hurt him, he had every chance to do it already. It wasn't as if he had the energy or strength anymore to fight back if he needed to, but it was honestly still terrifying to have this complete stranger know what he was and be here in his home when he was at his weakest. It was all the ingredients that could have led to him being taken in by the Ministry and possibly killed on sight for what he was. Everyone 'knew' how werewolves were. Violent, nasty killers. Nothing more. Damn it, Greyback.

"Don't go too far," came the murmur from Remus. "Just.. give me a little while. Figure out... where to go from then." It made sense in his mind. Just a few hours, enough to get his strength back, then they could make a plan to handle getting Vrenille back to his home in-- wherever it was. Some part of South America or Africa, as far as the logic of his brain could compute given the concept of 'jungles' being there.

He didn't, at that point, so much as go to sleep as completely pass out, very still but clearly breathing on the cot. The shack around them was a fairly simple design, just enough to keep out the howling wind and rain, with the cot, a small table with a tankard of water neatly capped, and a small bag on the floor that must have been Remus'.

“Yeah,” Vrenille assured as he watched Remus drop off to what would hopefully be a restful sleep, “Sure."

Of course this meant that Vrenille was going to have to figure out what to do with himself in the meantime. It was cold in the shack and the wind howled in a low, near-constant whistle outside. Obviously he wasn't going to get any body heat from Remus at this point--there was barely room on the cot anyway.

Sitting down on the floor with his back resting against the cot, he ate his own omnomberry bar, thinking over all that had happened and trying to understand the young man who fate had thrown him together with. Growing up poor made it pretty easy to spot the signs of poverty on someone else, but with Remus certain things were...different.

He didn't seem to have the same sort of hardscrabble pragmatism that life on the streets had taught Vrenille. Hard luck might have touched him more recently. But there was something else too--he was clearly used to people being afraid of him, used to living in guardedness and secrecy, and yet these same things seemed to pain him in a way that also implied he wasn't really used to them at all.

It was a mystery, but not one that made Vrenille feel disinclined to like the man. Perhaps he even liked him more for it. Granted, Vrenille generally found it easy to like people, which made the way he made a living a lot easier in turn, but Remus couldn't be seen as a mark in any traditional way. With him, it already seemed clear, everything would be a kind of barter, but Vrenille was fine with that: Remus badly needed companionship and affection; Vrenille badly needed someone who would help him find his way home.

He pulled the covers up closer around Remus and for a moment let his hand rest lightly on his shoulder atop the covers. Then he sighed, rummaged around in his pack some more and found a long-sleeve shirt which he swapped for the sleeveless one he'd been wearing. He retrieved his scarf, wrapped it around his neck once more, and picked up Remus’s wand where it had fallen on the floor, setting it on the table after only a brief examination (interesting little weapon; small, light weight).

His next order of business, he figured, was to try and get a fire going. He found an old wood-burning stove in the corner of the shack, though there was no telling how long ago it was last used. He cleaned the soot out of the grate, flicked his finger against the stove pipe to check that it sounded clear and then went out and collected branches of heather to have something to burn for fuel.

It took a while, but eventually he had a fire going. The sun had technically risen a few hours ago now, but the clouds had since rolled in thick and the day remained gray and glum. Coming back in from the moor, Vrenille’s fingers had been stiff with cold. Inside at least he could thaw out a bit. He took a blanket from his pack and sat by Remus’s cot with it wrapped around his shoulders, occasionally drifting off for a few minutes of light sleep, getting up every now and then to feed heather branches into the fire. At least when Remus awoke it should be warmer in here than it had been, for whatever comfort that would be worth.

It would be many hours before Remus would start to stir again. It was the sleep of someone so physically exhausted that there was no energy to even spare turning or shifting in their sleep. So when he finally started to curl in on himself, it showed signs of some actual return to existence that probably was very welcomed at this point. It started with that, Remus' lanky frame tucking into itself as if it was cold, but after a few more moments, it shifted into the opposite and stretched out long as could be without even bothering to open his eyes. Then it reversed again, curling any limbs that got out from under the blanket back in, and nosing around briefly as if looking for something.

And found nothing. That finally properly stirred Remus' higher consciousness to kick in and his eyes opened as the sinking realization Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail weren't there. Alone.

No, not alone. His head turned and his eyes focused on the stranger who was in his home, almost puzzled at the fact that they were still here. Why? Why wouldn't they have just left and found themselves somewhere else? He wasn't sure if that built or removed trust for Vrenille, in all honesty. Still, as he slowly sat up, he realized he was going to have to figure that out very quickly.

"...hello." Awkward. This wasn't like his friends who knew all about him, he knew all about them (or so he believed). This was a stranger.

"Hey!" Still seated on the floor but swiveling so that his folded arms rested on the cot as he looked up at Remus, Vrenille answered the younger man's awkwardness with a casual ease, bright eyes, and a warm smile. "Are you feeling better? You slept for a long time."

And Vrenille had been patient in that long time. He'd gotten some rest, though he hadn't slept soundly; he'd stretched his legs every now and then, sometimes sitting for a while in the chair in front of the little window, watching the weather on the moor; he'd tended the fire, gone out a couple times to gather more fuel, and kept the woodstove lit and burning; but mostly he'd sat on the floor by the cot, head leaning back against the edge of the covers, dozing and waiting for Remus to wake.

So now, when he did wake, Vrenille just looked genuinely happy to see him, not impatient but just eager. "I managed to get the stove going--I hope that's ok. I figured it'd help if it wasn't so cold in here. And there's still half of an omnomberry bar there, if you want it."

There was a tacit, but still very purposeful, kind of submissiveness that Vrenille was showing here, and the cues of his body language--the way he was sitting on the floor, eyes raised to look up at Remus--came with their own subtle hints too. (For some men, he very well knew, this alone would be enough to suggest the possibility of him on his knees for them. That wasn't what he was trying to imply to Remus, but if the seed of that idea just happened to be planted too...)

Vrenille needed Remus to like him--to care about him enough that he would see this through to the end. He needed Remus to see him as trustworthy, honest, loyal. This was what he had to barter in exchange for the help he needed, and he needed to sell the younger man on the deal, in spite of whatever reservations or suspicions he had.

"It's.. it's okay. Of course it's okay." Vrenille was actively managing to leave Remus more and more stumped. The other was just so damn cheerful about everything, like none of this was strange, wrong, or he hadn't nearly been killed or worse last night. That smile certainly looked real, though honestly Remus felt warmed inside to see it - the first real smile he had seen in a while - it almost felt like it had to be faked despite the obvious evidence otherwise. Maybe it wasn't a surprise the werewolf had trust issues after betrayals, loss, and war.

Remus tended to have been a touch more on the submissive side compared to Sirius and James in their little group, though he could never compare to poor Peter who definitely took the win in that category, and in the utter oddity of the situation, those sorts of thoughts didn't have much of a chance of taking hold. Instead, he just slowly sat up, moving with the deliberate nature of someone used to this being a stiff and painful process. It was. It always was.

He swung his feet out, managing to hold back a wince, and worked on getting some of the basic kinks out. It wasn't that he disliked Vrenille. The other seemed nice enough, clearly had earned some trust after everything so far, but he knew precisely nothing other than a name, a possible terrible situation that brought him here, the other lived in a jungle, and used odd names for things. Not even Muggle names, either.

"Once I'm something like awake, that... what did you call it? The berry bar would be very welcomed. I can Apparate us to somewhere where we can get some kind of proper breakfast, though. Then... we can go about figuring out how to try and get you back where you belong, mm?" A small smile, trying to encourage. It wasn't a deal he needed or wanted; he would have tried to help no matter what, even if the other had been a Muggle.

"Omnomberries," Vrenille took the liberty of moving to sit on the side of the cot beside Remus, not quite close enough for their shoulders to touch. "Guess they probably don't grow around here. Mostly you find them way down in Orr.

"I've got a friend who's a great cook though. He made these," a vague gesture towards the omnomberry bar on the table. "Made a few cans of soup and stuff that I've got in my pack too. But they're not so great for breakfast."

This was progress, Vrenille thought. Not leaps and bounds of progress, but it was still something. If Remus wasn't exactly trusting him yet, at least he was not trusting him less than he was before.

"You sure you can handle this whole Apparating thing again though? I mean, it seemed to take a lot out of you last time."

He would admit he wasn't the most traveled of people, really, but even so he had never heard of the terms Vrenille kept using. Omnomberry? Orr? Remus' brows pinched together, trying to figure out how to deal with this problem. He rubbed a hand slowly over his face, hair falling to take its place, before he let out a great sigh. Handle this one step at a time.

"Apparating doesn't take that much out of me, but the... change does." That couldn't have felt more awkward trying to explain, but this wasn't one of his gone friends. This wasn't someone who understood. Time to breech the boggart in the room, though. "Are you trying to tell me... you don't know how Apparating works?" He tilted his gaze at Vrenille, trying to understand him, trying to catch his expressions.

Even the Americans had Apparation; how could any wizard not know it? Maybe... someone who was home schooled...? A wizard not part of the greater community? That seemed almost impossible, given the little information Vrenille had given him so far. If the other had been traveling by an 'air ship', given the suggested name there that wasn't a Muggle airplane, then that spoke of a bigger community. Didn't it? Or could he be from some little tiny group of wizards out in a jungle somewhere?

This was making his head hurt.

Vrenille gave Remus a careful look, a slight frown of consternation on his brow. He could see he was getting caught here, but he couldn't see a way out except with some kind of provisional admission.

"What you did? No. I can teleport, y'know, short distances--line of sight and all. And I can make portals from one place to the next, but only to places I've been--places I've just been."

He let himself look a little sheepish here. "I'm guessing that Apparating is pretty much standard practice in these parts, huh? Everyone does it so it's kind of strange that I can't?"

Evidently, Vrenille still wasn't terribly focused on the particulars of Remus's "change" as he called it, and the truth was that it hadn't really occurred to him that this would be so glaringly strange. Doing the kind of work that he did meant taking people as they were, eccentricities, quirks, strangeness, risks, and all.

Risks, of course, had to be managed, but risks came in different varieties. The way Vrenille saw it, it was the mean-spirited, cruel kind of guys that you had to stay away from--the ones who wanted to trick you, trap you, hurt you for their pleasure. Whatever this whole werewolf thing involved, Remus was obviously not the sort of person who wanted to hurt others. For Vrenille that took him out of the column of "back the hell away" and put him into the column of "accept people's differences as they come."

Even if Remus wasn't (for whatever reason) very used to that, Vrenille figured that if he just carried on before long it wouldn't seem so strange.

"I... thought it was common all around the world." But his tone suggested he was starting to rethink this notion. He rubbed a hand over his face with a sigh, wishing it felt like he didn't need ten more hours of sleep. A meal would help, though he knew that what he had in his pocket would only barely cover the cost of the both of them. Needed to get more jobs with the Ministry, if he was going to survive. He could practically see Sirius rolling his eyes--

That was firmly removed from his current thinking. Sirius had killed Peter, betrayed them...

When would it stop feeling like a dagger through his heart?

Remus held up his hand, giving himself a moment, before he hoisted himself up. "I know somewhere I can borrow a map from, but I can't take you there. Honestly, I know you're a bit worried about the Ministry, but maybe I could pull some strings and get you a private floo? It at least could get you back to your part of the world."

If Vrenille had known that money was an issue he would have offered to help, for whatever good his currency would do here at least. He didn't know, at least not yet; all he knew for sure was that nothing he said seemed to make the situation wear on Remus any less. That, he felt, was rather concerning, and it made him really not want to admit that he hadn't the slightest notion what a floo was meant to be, private or otherwise.

He watched Remus with concerned eyes for several long moments, following the way that his hand rubbed over his face, the thin, careworn look about him. He genuinely didn't want to put the guy out. So he supposed the best option was to risk a little more trust.

"Look, I don't know what things are like here but as far as I know, half the members of the Ministry are plotting against the Queen, and probably all of them have allies and factions that I don't even know about. If they've got friends of friends out in these parts--

"I just try and stay out of politics whenever I can, y'know?" It was half an apology since Vrenille felt like he probably seemed to be being needlessly difficult, but he still wasn't rushing to grab the offer of Ministry help. He still felt like just seeing a map would make his current situation more manageable.

The problem was that even if Vrenille's money had been good, Remus wouldn't have taken it. In the end, he didn't want to be someone's charity case. He had always wanted to work to earn his keep, even if the society around him was one that made it very difficult for him to do so without potentially being caught. Sometimes, all too easily, he could see why so many werewolves went to the dark side or rebeled completely against the wizarding society that treated them so poorly. Despite his generally good-going nature, it left him frustrated and angry from time to time.

Vrenille's current words, however, were leaving him even more confused, if that was possible. Half the Ministry plotting against the Queen...? His brows came together, trying to even figure out where or why or anything. The Muggles, as far as he knew, knew nothing about their world. He wasn't high enough in the know to have any idea that there was in fact a connection between the Ministry and the Prime Minister, so in his mind there wasn't even a point to the Ministry working with the Queen. He probably looked as confused as he felt, spreading a hand.

"Wait, I- I'm not following. Do you mean the Queen of your homeland?" He wracked his mind hard trying to think of where another Queen might be, but he was terrible with Muggle politics! "Why would the Ministry be involved with your Queen? And... this wouldn't involve you in politics- just to get you through the travel agency, you know? It's not like this is the first time in history someone's been teleported in an accident and your fellow travelers might have dealt with the same?"

They could argue the money thing out if it ever came up. Maybe at some point it would. And they definitely wouldn't see eye-to-eye. To Vrenille it would be a very clear case of 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours,' which didn't have the first thing to do with charity. But then they'd probably end up having some sort of a discussion about kinds of work too, and that, Vrenille knew, was often a bit...messy. People had feelings about the kind of work he did, many of them not very favorable. It wasn't a topic Vrenille was going to rush into discussing with anyone.

Granted, it wasn't like the current topic of discussion seemed to be going very well either. Despite really wanting to make all of this easier, it seemed that everything Vrenille said just confused Remus more.

"Er...yeah, um something like that?" His homeland, technically was in Ascalon, Jennah was the Queen of Kryta, but she was the Regent of Ascalon--its one and only remaining human city anyway. There were a lot of conflicting opinions on the matter. "It's complicated.

"Wait, are you saying that your Ministry isn't part of your government?" To his mind that sort of begged the question of what in the world they did. But maybe they were just like...rich noble civil servants or something. Anyway, more importantly: "You're telling me that things like this have happened before?? Where? When?"

The quiet sound that left Remus was very wolf like, one of his friends would have once pointed out, because it was a quiet whine low in his throat as he got more and more confused. Was it just because Vrenille wasn't from around here? That would make sense, but... somehow what he was saying was adding less and less up for him! He held up his hands, shaking his head.

"The Ministry is our government. The Queen is part of the Muggle government, not ours. The Ministry would have nothing to do with her. And- of course things like this have happened before in history. There's all sorts of side effects that have gone wrong over the years. I don't understand - haven't you ever heard of one?" How was it possible for a bloke to have never heard of any magic gone wrong?

Oh great, now he was actually hurting the guy. Terrific. That was SO not what Vrenille had been aiming for. Grenth's balls, what was he supposed to do now?

Just...be calm. Right? Calm...should...help?

He took a deep breath. "I've heard of a few displacement events, sure. The Thaumanova Reactor disaster's probably the most famous. But...look, I don't pretend to know a lot of history. All that's stuff that people learn about in school, and I never went to school.

"I guess I'm probably kind of ignorant." It didn't feel particularly good admitting that, but it was true. He looked down at his hands for a moment. "I don't even know what a Muggle government is, if I'm honest."

It wasn't hurting but it certainly was leaving him confused! Reactor? That sounded quite a bit like Muggle technology more than anything Wizarding. His brow pinched together harder as he listened, but then the last bit really shot up them both in surprise. Was Vrenille just... such a low level wizard, from another country, that he knew none of what Remus was talking about? Terms varied by country, that much he knew well enough, even if he didn't particularly know what any of them were, but this felt like they were speaking two different languages all together. So, cautiously, he decided to try another approach.

"...I... I don't mean to make you feel ignorant," Remus said, an honest sympathy and concern in his voice. Hurting people, in any way, was the last thing he wanted to do. "It's more likely me who's ignorant, given that no matter where you go in the world they all know different things and have different ways of handling magic and wizards. So... let's try this instead? Why don't we go get breakfast and over it, you can tell me more about your part of the world?" That way, they could try and find some common ground to work on over a decent meal, then go looking for this map Vrenille wanted so badly. Madam Rosemerta would usually give him a bit of a break and let him work off meals if he needed to, so he already had in mind where they would go.

Vrenille exhaled a deep breath, trying to take some comfort in the idea that they could at least move forward and not get too stuck on this point just now.

Personally, he was willing to bet that of the two of them he really objectively was the more ignorant. He was exponentially less ignorant now than when he'd left Ebonhawke two years prior, granted. But two years wasn't nearly long enough to make up for a life that had always been lived very small in a city with walls that kept everyone who wasn't born there out.

"Yeah," he nodded earnestly. "Yeah, that sounds good." Good for both of them, probably.

And as for what he'd say about his part of the world...? Well, at this point he was at least starting to feel like he could be cautiously honest with the younger man. Wolf or no wolf, he had a good feeling about Remus. Hopefully he was right and that wouldn't turn around to bite him in the ass.

Remus gave a long, slow stretch, feeling his body ache heavily in certain areas with old injuries. The scars crossing his body were numerous and many might have considered them frightening or ugly, in particular because it looked like he had been savaged over and over again. The worst, to him, were the ones that came from Greyback. The deep pits of scars at his shoulder where the wolf's teeth had sunk in and held him as a screaming child, the claw lines down his left thigh and ones over his ribs... they were marks of shame in his eyes, but not for a reason any one else would properly understand. Sometimes, they ached, and this morning was no exception.

But all of that was hidden under a faint smile, despite the bags under his eyes and the tiredness in his face. "If you didn't like it last time, this time won't be much better, but breakfast afterward might make up for it." He offered his hand to Vrenille, hoping that maybe over this meal he'd learn a bit more about this stranger from another country.

Before they left, Vrenille went over to close the air intakes on the woodburning stove, making sure that the small fire would soon burn itself safely out.

Then he stepped over to Remus, this time standing directly before him, face to face, and slid his hand into the younger man's, lacing their fingers together. It was a rather more intimate way of completing the gesture than it needed to be, strictly speaking. But Vrenille had his reasons.

He was inclined to be rather mercenary about his sexuality for one thing: he liked Remus, and he had always courted men he liked to be his patrons if he could. But it was more than that (and not even that, really, since Remus obviously had nothing like the financial means to pay Vrenille either for one night or many).

Although Remus was clothed now, Vrenille had seen the full tableau of his bare skin earlier--the network of scars, deep and old and unfading. He'd kept his own council on that bodily script, deliberately not saying a word, but oh he had most definitely noticed. Just like he noticed the telltale signs of old aches and injuries complaining. Just like he'd noticed the shadow of all those scars haunting Remus's eyes, ghosts of troubles and wrongs done (or done to him).

That latter distinction, Vrenille felt, hardly mattered.

He no longer needed to be told that Remus was an outcast, nor that the wolf he'd seen him as last night was the reason why. And for Vrenille, whose first and most constant clients were soldiers of the Ebon Vanguard (men whose lives were spent up on the wall or scouting patrols to sneak supplies past the siege lines, who were scarred by charr claws and teeth or by blades and munitions), who'd spent more nights than he could count being a source of their comfort, rough or soft, a source of their release, their relief--for him it was precisely a body marked by old wounds that made for something familiar and secure. This, Vrenille felt, was a thing that he knew. Something constant that linked the experiences of a foreign land to the old confidence of home.

The smile he gave Remus passed its warmth under a roguish disguise. "What's that saying?" he asked, referring to the obvious momentary unpleasantness of Apparation he knew he'd have to endure, "Eye on the prize? I mean, breakfast." He didn't really mean breakfast at all.

Remus blinked down at the grip of their hands, looking just a little confused about the touch. It wasn't a very typical grip for two men to take, hell even with his friends, so it balked his mind for several seconds until he gave the smallest physical shake of his head to try and clear it. It didn't mean anything. Probably after that last Apparate, if Vrenille didn't do it, the other wanted something more stable.

Unfortunately for Vrenille, he had a bit of a case on his hands. One like he most likely wouldn't have expected. Remus wasn't an old man, but he looked older than his years would suggest. War and grief had aged a young man who hadn't been on the best physical track to begin with. But more than that... given what he was, he hadn't exactly gone and sought out anything really in physical comforts. Not when for so long there had been only eyes for a certain someone, but look where that got him in the long run. Betrayal. Death. Loss.

So even when it was being quite literally pressed into his hands, Remus wasn't the sharpest in catching certain things.

So Remus thought Vrenille meant breakfast.

"Right!" He gave a smile that was something more like others might have recognized as normal for him and nodded. "Hold on tight." He patted his side, double checking his wand, and grabbed the small suitcase he had brought before he closed his eyes and thought of where he wanted to be.

After that sickening feeling he would never get over, his eyes opened and he let out a breath, staring at the front of his favorite place to go. "Welcome to the Three Broomsticks," he said with a hint of longing in his voice. BREAKFAST!

Well gosh, if that wasn't just adorable. Vrenille actually couldn't remember the last time someone had received one of his advances with that much innocent incomprehension.

Or...no, not innocence. This was something else. This was disbelief. This was some oddly quaint sense of impossibility, the sort that made him almost wonder if Remus had ever--

Oh, right. Apparating.

The feeling of solid ground suddenly hitting his feet once more forced every other thought from Vrenille's mind and again he staggered a step back, hand slipping free of its grip, before he gained his bearings and had a look at their new surroundings. "Six," he swore softly under his breath, wondering if Apparating was one of those things that got easier to stomach the more that you did it.

To Vrenille the place looked a lot like any ordinary human town--like Applenook Hamlet or Shaemoor, at least in the style of the buildings. Except in those places even the winters were quite mild, and here the ground crunched underfoot. Still, it seemed nice enough on the surface. And it had a nice enough pub for them to eat at. More important, that tone of familiarity in Remus's voice must mean that he was a regular of sorts here, which gave Vrenille a good notion of how he probably ought to act: high discretion, high charm, low flirtation. Last thing he wanted to do was to embarrass Remus in front of people he knew.

"Looks homey. And warm." It was as cold out on the street as it had been on the moors, Vrenille thought, and the sky was just as gray. The wind, perhaps, was slightly less bitter, since it had the buildings to break against, but he was still eager to be indoors.

"Hey, we're still in Scotland, right?" he checked with Remus in a low voice as they headed in, realizing that every time they Apparated he was left with absolutely no idea what distance they'd traveled or what direction they'd gone in. If he needed to get back to the spot he'd first arrived at now, he wouldn't have the first idea how to find it.

This was as familiar as home for Remus. Hogwarts, Hogsmede... those were home for him in a way no other place had been or possibly ever could. Ever since then had been a great deal of moving, places that were very much alone or out in the middle of no where, all things that felt like, and was, keeping him away from civilization. It didn't bother him... at least he didn't let it seem that way.

"You'll love this place. It couldn't be better." Remus had definitely perked up a little - not much, but there was something more in his eyes at seeing this clearly familiar place. "And yes, we're still in Scotland." He kept his voice down, given that someone glanced their way with Vrenille's comment, and nudged the other towards the door so they could go inside.

It was toasty warm inside against the chill outside, and people were all digging into breakfasts, chatting, and there was the clink of plate and fork and glass. A proper pub, a lively one at that, and it seemed that Remus was a regular given the reaction of the woman behind the bar. "Remus! It's been a while," she called over, gesturing for him. She peered to Vrenille with a shrewd eye, then gave a quick smile. "And who is your friend?"

"This is Vrenille," Remus said with a small smile. "Vrenille, this is Rosemerta. She recently became the owner of this pub."

There was just a hint of sadness in both their tones and faces, something hard to pinpoint, but it was gone quickly. "You both must be hungry. Come on, let's get you lads something to eat." She was ushering them over to a table, gesturing for them to sit before tucking off out through a door that must have gone into the kitchen.

Broken on the Dawn

That's putting it lightly, sadly.

Opens the door for fanwork creativity at least? /momentary optimist

I suppose so?? XD

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omnomberry is just such a fun word

It really is! Stroke of small genius on the devs' part, that one.

Agreed

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