WARNING: This is a slash story, which means it contains male/male erotic content involving consenting adults. If you're not of legal age or are offended by such material, please go find something else to read.

TITLE: Like Clockwork
AUTHOR: Snaples
EMAIL: severus_snaples@hotmail.com
RATING: R (for violence)
SUMMARY: Lupin goes through the change with an unlikely assistant
DISCLAIMER: J.K. Rowling owns them. I just play with them, whether they like it or not.

'Soon, Severus.'

He does not need to be reminded. Snape vents an irritated sigh and draws the curtains close, hiding the bright orb of the moon. 'I know.'

'You can't stay here,' Remus says raucously, his sickly pale face pressed against a damp pillow. He starts to shed the covers Snape has thrown over his body before a chill creeps over his skin and he draws them back under his chin.

He is never comfortable. The chill wallows in his very bones and a complementary fever boils his flesh. He bats the pillow away, because it offers nothing in the way of comfort, and presses his aching forehead to the mattress. He has already begun to twist under the sheets, his limbs moving anxiously in a rhythm that signals the beginning of his transformation. He can feel the disease seep into his veins, already assailing the core of his body.

In this moment, he hates life and wishes to end it. In this moment, he feels only the agony and the illness and the nausea and he yearns to die to never feel like this again. People who suffer such pain go through life wondering and fearing if they will have to endure it again. Remus knows that he will. Every month. Like clockwork.

He heaves dryly over the side of the bed, his stomach clenching over nothing, a ritual that follows invariably the sensation and sound of grinding bones in his body; Remus knows not to eat during the day that precedes a full moon. Knows, because he does not want to be ashamed as well.

He is pushed back over the bed and he shies from the scalding touch, vaguely remembering that it is usually cool and that it is his own fever twisting his senses. Words form in his throat, and he hears them spoken as though he listens from another room. Words like 'please', 'die' and 'love'. He does not know in what context he uses them. He thinks they are nonetheless more shameful than vomiting over himself.

The convulsions, now. Through the wracking of his body as bones elongate or shorten, while muscles tear and reform, he feels another body sidle behind him and trap his wrists up and away from his face. He remains there, spread as though crucified, while his body thrashes against the immovable presence pressed behind him like a second mattress. When his head loll back in exhaustion, for a brief respite when his ribs settle and his hip bones widen, he feels heated breaths in the crook of his shoulder. He whines. Focuses on the long, human fingers pressed into the fur that once were his wrists.

When his claws lock into place, he is released.

When the werewolf stirs groggily on the bed, the door closes quietly and locks.

He takes a brief nap in his second body and dreams of chasing prey through the forest. Sometimes the prey becomes a man in billowing robes. But that prey does not run. He is merely unable to catch up. His paws twitch and he whimpers in his sleep, haunted by the pull of the moon.

When he wakes, he paces. Caged. Growling. His consciousness drifts from the fore of his mind in this moment. He is at his most dangerous. The moon, high, seems to shorten the leash. He rises on his hind legs and scratches wildly at the door, adding grooves over the numerous marks that denote his previous efforts.

No one answers him and he returns to pacing.

Daydreams of running in the forest. It is enough to hang his head out of the window and howl. But he will not escape. He cannot escape. Lupin looks down and watches his drool drop and vanish into endless darkness. He has already forgotten the pain. He no longer wants to die, and so drops back into the room to pace.

When the moon lowers, he begins to remember more of himself; the man he is when he is not the wolf. He hops onto the bed and settles. He stares at the door, his head bowed in alert, his body twitching at every sound.

He smells him minutes before there is movement beyond the door.

It unlocks and opens. No words are offered. Lupin watches keenly as Severus moves into the room and closes the door behind him. He always remembers to lock it once more. Lupin's head drops suddenly, in a strange nod, though Severus has never needed the invitation. He moves toward the bed. There is no caution in his steps or his sudden movements.

Lupin allows to be stretched back against the warmth of Snape's body. The fever no longer affects his body, and there is only a pleasant sharing of body heat as they settle. It is an awkward position for a wolf, though it is not a position he endures for long. Like clockwork. Severus is as punctual as the plague that affects Lupin's body.

Along the way, howls falter into raucous screams. Fur is shed, though most of it is drawn back into his body, prickling below the flesh and waiting for the next moon. The grip on his wrists never loosen. He clenches his fists and struggles against the embrace.

When Lupin is Remus once more, Severus turns his chin and kisses him. There is no affection. Only a brief catalogue of Remus's teeth with the other man's tongue -- perhaps to make certain fangs have disapeared -- and a caress that is brief enough to be doubted.

It is the only kindness. Aside from the unspoken, unconditional kindness Snape extends every month.

As vivid as his wish to die is whenever the pain rises, Lupin wishes to live another month to feel the exquisite embrace of his unexpected caretaker.