It's two in the morning. Raining.
Raindrops pattering on my rooftop, heavy on my ears, a deafening roar against the calm of silent, quick and desperate sex and a one night stand.
It's dark save for the slit of neon light that peaks through the paper thin blue curtain, dusty and torn at the edges.
He's asleep on my bed.
It used to be our bed once and the taste of that memory is so bitter in my mouth now that it only worsens my nausea that I've been trying to control since I woke up to the ghost of a face resembling you.
He even sleeps like you-on his stomach, head on the pillow with your arms under them. I almost laugh at how I mix you and him in my sentences even in my head.
I really do feel sick the more I think about it. It's the first time I've been with someone after you...
I stop my thoughts there.
'.. after you...'
It's easier to think that you might've just left.
Left me, broken up with me, stopped loving me.
I never thought myself capable of being loved by anyone, let alone you.
But you did.
Did you?
Same bitter taste in my mouth.
You could've just said you didn't love me. I would've believed you in an instant and I removed myself in all capacity from your life if that's what you wanted.
But the cruelty that you showed when you gave up James, Lily and Harry over to Voldemort is something I would've never thought you capable of. I knew you had darkness in you when I fell in love with you. But I also saw you try and outrun that darkness and it made me fall in love with you all the more.
You ripped me apart when you gave up my secret.
But that pain was nothing compared to what I felt when I returned from my last mission to find James and Lily dead, Harry taken away and you gone.
Gone, Sirius.
We fought so bad the last time I left because you didn't want me to go but I had to. I had to save a kid from Greyback and I couldn't tell you that. There was a target on everyone's back and Dumbledore told me there was a traitor amongst us.
But I never thought it would be you.
What would you have done had I not left?
Would you have slipped out of our bed, out of my arms, out of my love and betrayed us all in the cold, shadow of the night?
Would you have not betrayed us at all had I been there?
Could I have stopped you?
How foolish I am!
I never had any power over anything that happened in my life.
Bitten at four and since then I've been a slave to nature and everything else.
I melted in your love, under your silver gaze. I couldn't distinguishe where my skin ended and yours began when we layed together. I was more comfortable with you that I was with myself, in my head.
You understood me. Until you didn't.
It's still dark. I feel like I've been lost in my head forever but my watch says it's only been fifteen minutes. He's still asleep on our bed and I can't remember his name.
I wasn't drunk or high. He might've even said his name out loud but I ignored it. I was too busy noticing and then forgetting his physical similarities to you.
His eyes are grey, cheek bones high and he has deep black, unrully hair.
That is it.
His voice isn't rough and deep nor fingers slender and soft like yours.
Your touch, Sirius!
It's been twelve full moons and I've not been touched by one soul in over a year. I woke up yesterday and couldn't say if I was alive or dead, couldn't move a muscle at first and when I finally could pull myself out of bed, I had to look at a mirror to know if I was solid. Warmth has eluded me and against all my better judgement, I put myself out there today.
This guy came over after work and, well, just said he wanted sex and I gave in. I needed to feel someone's touch, someone's warmth and honestly, he was as gentle as anyone could possibly get.
I still feel nauseous though, justifying myself to you in my head.
But as I get off the bed and light a cigarette to swallow the bile, threatening to come up, I look at his sleeping form and, in the darkness, I can almost imagine it's you.
I drop the cigarette and retch into the kitchen sink.
It can never be you. It isn't you. I shouldn't have to imagine it to be you.
It should've been you, tonight and every night.
You betrayed me. You betrayed us. But I still can't stop loving you and that make me want to kill myself. This is so unfair to James and Lily.
I'm in love with their murderer.
Your family should be proud. Mine, whatever is left, should cast me out.
Merlin! Sirius, this is so wrong. What will I do when he wakes up? I should probably just pretend to be asleep and hope that he leaves without a word. It's so pathetic.
But tomorrow, tonight will feel like a distant dream. I will go back to the same game of avoiding myself in my head all day, avoiding people.
I keep a low profile. No one notices me and in a way that's good. I don't have to consciously keep up a facade of any sort. My thoughts keep struggling in my head, but that's well hidded, always.
It's just that this loneliness also makes me notice things I don't want to.
Couples kissing, holding hands, friends chatting- makes my heart ache and I have to reach out to something to support myself from the sheer onslaught on emotions and memories that flood me.
I usually keep my eyes low. But sometimes out of the corner of my eyes i catch a glimpse of red hair, green eyes, a black leather jacket, pudgy fingers and unrully hair and I have to look back. Against all thoughts in my head, I look back and pray a thousand prayers for it to be true.
But it never is.
There's no Lily behind the red hair, no grey eyes showing off the black leather , no squeaky voice with pudgy fingers, no snitch jumping behind the black hair.
Everyone is gone.
I wish I could trade my life for all of yours. Even you, Sirius.
Actually I wish I could trade my life and get a future where you aren't the traitor. I would do anything for you to not be a traitor.
I almost laugh. I wish I could do that.
" Who is Sirius?" His voice startles me.
There's light outside the kitchen window and he's standing, sunkissed, buttoning up his shirt.
"What?" I don't even recognize my voice.
" You called me Sirius last night." He says and gathers up his bag that he'd left by the couch.
"Oh!" Is all I can say. His voice pulled me back from such vivid memories, that I feel like an important work has been snatched away from me. I don't know what I should be doing.
He cocks his head on one side, walks up to me and places a palm gently on my cheek.
I stiffen at the contact.
"Shh.. I'm not going to hurt you." He says gently, far too gently and I breathe and before I know a few tears have escaped my eyes.
He doesn't do anything, just watches me and grips my shoulders tightly, rooting me to the ground.
" I'm sorry. " I croak out. This is so awkward.
"It's okay." He says but looks worried. " Jesus, he really did a number on you."
And that is so wrong. Because you did nothing to me. You betrayed James and Lily and Harry and killed Peter but somehow I'm the one alive and breathing and carrying the burden of four lives with me.
I hear the door open and close behind me. Did he leave? Did he say anything before he left? Should I have offered him coffee? He acted far to gently than anyone needs to.
I should've offered him coffee.
I go back and lie on the bed because suddenly everything feels heavy and there are a couple of loose black hair on the pillow and I really do break down and cry this time.
The bed doesn't smell like you, I don't smell like us but there's back hair on the bed and it's not yours and I've slept with someone who isn't you and I really don't want to live the rest of my life like this.
It's a sunday too. How am I supposed to spend the rest of the day carrying this around with me, this pain that has no end, this loneliness that no one can fill, this ugliness that no one but you loved!
Scars.
Those are good now. The physical pain makes me forget other things.
So I roll over and land with a slight thud on the floor. My shaky legs carry me over to the washroom sink and I unwrap a new razor blade.
I stop and think what I'm doing. But no one cares really. There's no one there to care and that is all the reason for this numbing pain I need to let out.
I feel the cold metal against my skin far above my wrist and press it only slightly to the skin. Only a red line appears but I feel nothing. Nothing at all.
I press harder and only a trickle of blood oozes out. I press harder and it really seems like a bad idea, but only when I feel the pain I realize what I need to feel.
Five cuts later, I breathe.
I can breathe and that itself is a revelation.
I wash my arm with water and splash water on my face. Everything feels a little different, like something's shifted in me. But it feels good.
I walk back to me bed, dust off the black hair and pull the covers over my head.
Maybe I'll finally be able to sleep.