Remus Lupin | Age gap

The night had settled into the flat like a held breath.

September 23rd, and the street outside was quiet enough that Remus could hear the rattle of a distant train, the murmur of a television through the wall, the faint scratch of a branch against his study window. He had been staring at the same page of his book for the better part of an hour, the words long since blurring into grey smudges.

Tomorrow was the full moon.

Even with the Wolfsbane Potion the Ministry had delivered in a plain brown box, his body did not believe the promise of a calm transformation. His joints ached. His skin felt too tight. The wolf sat just beneath the surface, pacing and restless.

The knock made him flinch.

Remus set the book down and pressed his palms against his thighs. He already knew who it would be. There was only one person in the building who knocked at this hour with that particular rhythm—light, quick, entirely unconcerned about the lateness of the hour.

He opened the door.

{{user}} stood in the hallway, twenty-five years old and dressed in soft sleep clothes, a thick instruction manual held between their hands.

Remus looked from the manual to them.

“You want me to help you build a bed.”

A pause.

His gaze dropped briefly to the pages before returning to them.

“I was reading.”

Another glance at the manual.

Remus exhaled through his nose. “It’s nearly eleven o’clock.”

He should say no.

He had told himself—more than once—that he was too old for this. Too old for them. Their attention was flattering but impossible. He was fifty. Half a century old, with scars and secrets and a body that turned monstrous once a month.

And yet, perhaps getting out of his own head was exactly what he needed.

“Alright,” he said at last. “Give me a moment to find my shoes.”

The assembly was easier than he expected.

The instruction manual was badly translated, the diagrams a mess of arrows and vaguely humanoid shapes, but Remus had always been good with his hands. He knelt on the bedroom floor, surrounded by pale wooden slats and metal fasteners, fitting each piece together while the occasional rustle of paper came from nearby.

A glass of water appeared beside him.

“Thank you.”

He reached for it, his fingers briefly brushing theirs before he took the glass.

A moment later, they were beside him again, holding one of the rails steady while he secured the next fastener.

“Careful,” he murmured as the piece shifted. “You’ll pinch your fingers.”

The bed frame gave a quiet creak as he tightened the bolt.

The full moon pressed at the edges of him. He was too aware of everything—the dust in the air, the warmth of the room, the small sounds of the building settling around them. His shirt clung faintly to his back. He had rolled his sleeves to his elbows, exposing the old scars that silvered his skin.

“Hand me the Allen wrench.”

It was placed in his waiting hand.

Remus glanced down at it, then back at the bed frame.

He focused on the simple mechanical work of joining wood and metal. It was easier than thinking about anything else. Easier than noticing how close they were sitting, or how often their movements brought them within inches of one another.

“You’re very determined to make this difficult,” he murmured.

Whether he meant the bed or something else, even Remus wasn’t entirely certain.

By the time the bed was finished, his knees ached from the hard floor and the tension in his muscles had only partially eased.

The frame stood solidly in the center of the bedroom, the mattress still leaning against the wall.

“Not bad.”

Remus straightened with a quiet groan, rubbing one knee.

“You’ll want to tighten the bolts again in a week or so, once everything’s settled.”

He reached for the instruction manual and glanced over the final page.

“I believe that’s everything.”

The room fell quiet.

Remus looked toward the door.

“I should go.”

He took a step.

Then another.

He turned just as his balance gave way.

His legs struck the edge of the newly assembled frame, and he fell backward onto the mattress with a startled breath.

For a moment, Remus simply stared upward.

Then his gaze found them.

They stood at the edge of the bed, close enough that he could see the details of their face in the warm lamplight. There was something almost guilty in their expression.

His breathing had quickened.

One hand remained against the mattress beside him as he slowly pushed himself up onto his elbows.

Remus studied them for a long moment, suspicion slowly replacing his surprise.

A quiet, incredulous laugh escaped him.

“That was remarkably convenient.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, though the corner of his mouth betrayed him.

“I suppose I should be grateful you waited until we’d finished assembling it.”

The mattress sighed beneath them, a soft exhalation of springs and cheap padding that seemed to echo the quiet of the room. Dust motes drifted through the late afternoon sunlight, illuminating the remains of their earlier work: the abandoned screwdriver, scattered cardboard, and the new bed frame now resting at an awkward angle.

Remus Lupin stood by the window, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. Grey at his temples caught the light, contrasting with the weary lines around his eyes. His shirt remained untucked, buttons misaligned—a quiet reminder of the previous night.

He was fifty years old. He was on a mission. And he had just made a colossal mistake.

He could still feel the ghost of their touch against his skin.

And beneath it came the familiar stab of guilt.

The silence stretched. He could hear their breathing, slow and even, and for a moment he allowed himself to pretend there was nothing complicated about this. To them, he was simply Remus—the tired, quiet neighbor who had stopped by to help assemble a bed.

And then… this.

He turned from the window.

They were sprawled across the mattress, the sheet tangled around their legs, the fading light soft against their skin. The sight nearly undid him again.

“We’ve, ah, fully compromised the structural integrity of your bed,” he said, his voice a low rumble that felt jarring in the quiet.

He crossed the room and sat carefully on the edge. The broken frame groaned beneath his weight.

“You should sleep,” he murmured, though the words were more for himself than for them. A goodbye. A dismissal. A feeble attempt to re-establish the crumbling walls around his self-control. “I should… I should go.”

He made no move to stand.

His fingers traced the edge of the mattress absently, his gaze lingering despite himself. The war inside him had little to do with the wolf pacing restlessly.

“You know,” he began, his voice dropping to something even lower, rough around the edges. He paused, as if testing the weight of the words before he let them fall. The air crackled with a sudden, sharp awareness.

They were not asleep, or at least he hoped.

He leaned forward, bracing one hand on the far side of their hip, the other still resting on the mattress. The movement brought his face closer to the back of their neck.

“While we were… occupied, there was something you said.”

His eyes flicked toward them.

“You were quite insistent about it, actually.”

A quiet, disbelieving laugh escaped him.

“And while I suppose any man might be flattered, under the circumstances… it was hardly the sort of thing I expected to hear.”

He shifted slightly, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and embarrassment.

“You called me Daddy,” he said at last, the word roughened by disbelief.

A beat of silence.

“Repeatedly.”

His eyebrow lifted.

“And with a great deal of enthusiasm.”

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