Descend - Wolfstar + Marauders

Confession

He couldn’t do it.

All of them were staring at him with an unbearable air of pity. Why had he let Lily talk him into doing it this way?

She had insisted that if he tried to deal with it quietly and continue to keep them all out then he would just end up right back at square one. She was probably right. Any attempt he’d made to stop using so far had pretty much failed before it started. That didn’t make the idea of confessing his weakness to all of his closest friends at once any less humiliating.

At first Lily hadn’t wanted him to leave her house at all. She wanted to deal with it then and there, bringing in James and Sirius and just getting it all out of the way. She'd almost had him convinced. It would be so much easier to have her there as backup with Sirius. To have him show up with Remus already getting sick, to let Lily do the talking for him. Even Sirius would find it hard to argue with him while he was busy puking up his guts.

No. Sirius deserved better than that. He deserved better than to just be another part of the group, thrust into the middle of a crisis and forced to put his own feelings about it to the side. He deserved an honest, open conversation and for once in his fucking life, Remus was going to give it to him. He was going to try.

After a lot of back and forth he finally managed to convince Lily that it had to be that way. They came up with a plan that would have Remus see one last night of freedom, to be spent having what was likely to be a deeply unpleasant conversation. He would come back the next day, Sirius by his side if all went well. She decided if they were going to wait, then she'd use the time wisely, make sure everything was in place to deal with whatever complications may arise. She figured the best way to do that was to bring in Dorcas and Marlene, the resident experts, being a healer and an addict respectively. Neither she nor Remus really knew how sick he was going to get or what to do if something went wrong, so it made sense to get their help. And James would be there of course since it was his house, and hell if the whole gang’s there might as well invite Peter. He let it all get away from him a bit, but he was too tired and ashamed to fight Lily on the finer details. In the end he’d practically agreed to help host his own intervention.

He kept flashing back to when they were kids. Walking into his dormitory, first night back after yet another torturous transformation in that horrible shack. James, Sirius, and Peter had been waiting with a pile of chocolate and hot tea. There was a chart mapping the lunar cycle laid out. As soon as he saw it he tried to leave, but James blocked the door. It took hours to break through the blind panic enough to assure him they were on his side no matter what. Months after that before he really trusted it.

Fuck though, with all the other fears and pain that came from them knowing, it had still been so much better than having to hide.

So they had a day to prepare. A day before he would be giving up his lifeline. Lily was very reluctant to let him go. Neither of them said it, but they both knew if he was going home, he was getting high. He promised her he was coming back. They were going through with this, no matter what.

Truth was he had no plans of backing out. He couldn’t keep going like he had been. A little more everyday he thought about how easy it would be to just give up. Dissappear. Something had to change. He was tired. So, so tired.

Sirius hadn’t come home until late, caught up with an important report. When he got back to the flat, Remus was sitting at the table, waiting for him. It’s what Sirius always did when he wanted to have a difficult conversation, so he was immediately alert. He was a little confused when Remus asked him to go for a walk.

They ended up at the nearby community center. The support group had some late meetings which Remus had found the times of on a pamphlet. Sirius side eyed him as they walked in and sat down in the plastic fold out chairs at the back of the room, behind a small audience of very diverse people who all shared the same look of exhaustion. Remus didn’t give an explanation, just sat with his arms folded across his chest, avoiding looking at Sirius. The woman at the front of the room seemed to be halfway through a story.