Sestina!fic, Remus
This was the first sestina of all of them that I started, and it's still not finished. It was supposed to be a breathless sort of poem about the night Sirius nearly got Snape killed, bracketed by the somber reflections of current-day Lupin, but it kept getting stuck the further I went, all tangled up in itself, trying to say too much in too little space. I wrote, I wrestled, I deleted, I wrote, it got stuck again, and again, and again. I still don't like the last filled-in stanza, and to fix that, the one before it has to be tweaked. Here it sits, forlorn.
Title:
Character: Remus Lupin
Rating: PG-13 for language and mentions of violence
Summary: Remus drinks his potion and remembers.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Prompts: Tame, reject, detention, guilt, sour, waiting (from thewlisian_afer)
The Wolfsbane makes him tame.
Each month his stomach tries to reject
the potion with the vehemence of Sirius protesting detention
and each month he is tempted to skip his dose, but the guilt
always makes him swallow the lumpy, sour
contents of the goblet. Then he locks himself in his room, waiting.
In his younger days, the waiting
was the worst part. Transformation was anything but tame,
and the anticipation of pain brought the sour
taste of bile to his mouth. At moonrise his body would reject
itself, muscles tearing, bones cracking, scream building, guilt
dissolving into animal fury for the night. Detention
had nothing on this hell, but Sirius and James loved hating detention
and he didn't spoil their fun with self-pity. He'd lie waiting
in the Shack, curled up on floorboards stained with blood like guilt-
remnants of a crime in which he played both victim and aggressor, both tame
and wild-and remind himself he was lucky to have friends who didn't reject
him. Nights when they couldn't join him, that thought would sweeten his sour
mood. And he always laughed those mornings after at the sour
expression Sirius wore to proclaim the horrors of detention.
Always laughed, until the day he woke to find that Sirius had rejected
their friendship, broken his trust, nearly achieved what Remus had been waiting
for since being bitten-nearly made him a killer. Moony wasn't some tame
dog with a nasty bark, useful for frightening enemies. But if Sirius felt any guilt,
he never showed it, just kept saying the greasy git deserved it. No, the guilt
fell to Remus, while James got called a hero and Snape looked more sour
than usual and Peter cringed and Sirius insisted that someone had had to tame
the little Slytherin shite, which earned him another week of detention.
waiting
reject
reject
guilt
waiting
sour
detention
tame
reject sour
guilt detention
waiting tame.
the beast inside him tame.
But that was nothing compared to the guilt
That turned his whole body sour
No amount of detention
in the world could compensate.
Azkaban tamed
him.
Remus felt as tense as those first years at school when he'd been waiting
for his friends to figure out his secret and reject
him with accusing, hateful stares. Werewolf. Creature. Reject.
Remus swallowed his guilt,
Long accustomed to guilt, resigned to this version of detention,
he sits in his room, waiting for the Wolfsbane to make him tame.
Title:
Character: Remus Lupin
Rating: PG-13 for language and mentions of violence
Summary: Remus drinks his potion and remembers.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Prompts: Tame, reject, detention, guilt, sour, waiting (from thewlisian_afer)
The Wolfsbane makes him tame.
Each month his stomach tries to reject
the potion with the vehemence of Sirius protesting detention
and each month he is tempted to skip his dose, but the guilt
always makes him swallow the lumpy, sour
contents of the goblet. Then he locks himself in his room, waiting.
In his younger days, the waiting
was the worst part. Transformation was anything but tame,
and the anticipation of pain brought the sour
taste of bile to his mouth. At moonrise his body would reject
itself, muscles tearing, bones cracking, scream building, guilt
dissolving into animal fury for the night. Detention
had nothing on this hell, but Sirius and James loved hating detention
and he didn't spoil their fun with self-pity. He'd lie waiting
in the Shack, curled up on floorboards stained with blood like guilt-
remnants of a crime in which he played both victim and aggressor, both tame
and wild-and remind himself he was lucky to have friends who didn't reject
him. Nights when they couldn't join him, that thought would sweeten his sour
mood. And he always laughed those mornings after at the sour
expression Sirius wore to proclaim the horrors of detention.
Always laughed, until the day he woke to find that Sirius had rejected
their friendship, broken his trust, nearly achieved what Remus had been waiting
for since being bitten-nearly made him a killer. Moony wasn't some tame
dog with a nasty bark, useful for frightening enemies. But if Sirius felt any guilt,
he never showed it, just kept saying the greasy git deserved it. No, the guilt
fell to Remus, while James got called a hero and Snape looked more sour
than usual and Peter cringed and Sirius insisted that someone had had to tame
the little Slytherin shite, which earned him another week of detention.
waiting
reject
reject
guilt
waiting
sour
detention
tame
reject sour
guilt detention
waiting tame.
the beast inside him tame.
But that was nothing compared to the guilt
That turned his whole body sour
No amount of detention
in the world could compensate.
Azkaban tamed
him.
Remus felt as tense as those first years at school when he'd been waiting
for his friends to figure out his secret and reject
him with accusing, hateful stares. Werewolf. Creature. Reject.
Remus swallowed his guilt,
Long accustomed to guilt, resigned to this version of detention,
he sits in his room, waiting for the Wolfsbane to make him tame.