Title: And I am not dying...
Author: Andry
Rating: T, just to be safe.
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Sirius, Harry, Remus; vague Sirius/Harry
Warning(s): Language. Slash, of course. But that's about it.
Notes: This was written while I was listening to "Run" by Snow Patrol. The song fits the story's mood perfectly, and if any of you would like a copy of it, I'd be happy to email it. Please review!
Summary: Sirius realizes, almost too late, what he could have with Harry.
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"I am not dying, not anymore than any of us are at any moment. We run, hopefully as fast as we can, and then everyone must stop. We can only choose how we handle the race."
Hugh Elliott, Standing Room Only weblog comments, 06-11-04
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He'd been waiting there, on that train platform, for an hour before he'd realized that what he wanted wasn't going to happen; what he needed wasn't going to be given, what he craved…wasn't going to be had.
And he…he of all people had to admit that maybe what someone else had said had been true; what Remus had told him hadn't been a lie, and that if he didn't act now, that Harry would be lost to him forever. He hadn't wanted to believe him, hadn't wanted to accept the truth of both his feelings and his best friend's words.
He hadn't wanted to believe that maybe Harry loved him, too.
And now…now it was too late. Now, Harry James Potter was a hundred miles away, sitting listlessly in a train car as it sped away from a past that had haunted him forever, and a man who had hesitated at the wrong moment.
He was a hundred miles away, aware of and aching with the parting words that had meant so much and had been for all the wrong reasons.
Harry had asked him for a reason to stay, something he could hold on to now that everything was threatening to leave, half of it already gone. Harry hadn't begged, hadn't cried, hadn't cried…but Sirius could see it in his eyes.
He needed it almost as much as he wanted it. He loved Sirius, he wanted him, wanted a future that seemed impossible, and Sirius, being Sirius, had flinched away from the possibility of being happy. He'd turned to the side, so he could look at Harry through the corner of his eyes and deny that he saw it.
It, being the only thing he'd ever wanted in his life that was completely, utterly, undeniably in his grasp.
"Sirius…"
"I…I'm sorry, Harry." "…it's fine. Um, I guess…I guess I'll be…" "No, no…you won't." A quiet laugh and Harry turned to the side, facing the direction he didn't want to travel in, the future he didn't want to face. "No, I guess I won't be." "Promise you'll write?" Harry acted as if he hadn't heard. "This is…goodbye, I guess." Sirius turned to face Harry's future, noting with an aching heart that this was the moment where everything ended, where the hope faltered and the lines blurred and maybe it wouldn't be so hard after all, if his heart would just stop beating long enough to forget the pain. "I guess it is."
He'd lingered on the platform, out of view, as Harry boarded the train, ignoring the curious looks from the few wizards who still knew of him, still passed him in awe, and still regarded him with that barely hidden curiosity that Harry had shirked even in the best of moods.
Sirius had wanted to cry then, when the whistle sounded, a wounded animal weeping its grief at losing its mate and maybe personification wasn't as strange a concept as portrayed in fiction because he felt that cry in the back of his throat; he felt it cloy around his senses, begging him, beseeching him, imploring him to change what was about to happen.
He knew it was wrong, knew that fate and a million other concepts were balking at him, urging him to leave the shadows, board that train, and escape away to that house in the country he'd promised Harry on a blue moon so many years ago.
His eyes had trained onto Harry for as long as they could, following his movement along the train, their color stormy as he whispered a thousand apologies for the look of indifference gracing Harry's features. The young man was always so passionate, so fierce, so determined…he was never this…dead.
And Sirius died then, too, a little on the inside, or maybe it was a lot, because when that train moved away from the platform, he couldn't breathe, couldn't watch, couldn't let go of the image of Harry sitting down somewhere, alone in his compartment, alone…so very alone.
And suddenly, the future he had just sat down for himself wasn't enough, wasn't real, couldn't be real because he was running after the train, trying to find Harry in the windows, searching for him because he wanted it, needed it, craved it enough to finally take it.
The train didn't stop, didn't falter, didn't even heed his cries as he shouted around the whistle, begging it to stop and telling Harry he loved him, that he wanted him, that he couldn't live without him and that was something so literal that it took Sirius' breath away when he realized it was so very true.
Sirius couldn't live without Harry and…the train didn't stop, but Sirius did, watching as it sped away, carrying the only thing he'd ever wanted and the only thing he'd never, ever, selfishly taken for himself.
He prayed to a thousand and one gods that the train would have to come back, because Harry hadn't told him where he'd been headed, who he'd been headed for, what he'd wanted, other than that silent plea for Sirius to accept him, to take him into his arms and never, ever, ever in a thousand years, a million years, ever let him go.
He waited for an hour before he died a little more and turned away from the one hope he had left in his body, the one thing that had kept him going for just an hour more, and his thoughts turned to the quiet corner at home where Remus never bothered him and the Fire whiskey bottle that lingered there; he wondered if it was enough to poison him and then he remembered.
He was already dying.
x
The walk home was quieting, unsettling, but numb. Sirius walked the steps with apathy, emotion heavy in his chest, feet automatically returning him to the home where so many things had gone wrong, and so many things had gone right.
Home, where Remus was, and Harry wasn't, where he was right in finding his whiskey in his corner on his table with a note in Harry's writing that was his and said, 'I love you,' the words that had started this tumble into sweet madness, the words that Sirius whispered over and over and over again when he tumbled into his chair with drunken grace and broken sobs.
"I love you."
The words that tumbled from his mouth when he was tumbling from the chair and being caught by arms that he knew so well, that he'd traced with his eyes because touch was forbidden, that he'd brushed against in the hallway, at work, in his dreams when the only thing in his sight was a slip of wrist from beneath the covers as he watched in the doorway as Harry slept on, mouth parted and breath whispering between his lips as Sirius had longed to do for too long a time.
"I love you."
Words that poured from his lips and Harry's as they tangled on the floor and Sirius didn't dare question the young man's return because this wasn't a dream, this was real, and if he tempted the fates with a question, Harry might change his mind and realize that this wasn't where he wanted to be; words that were mumbled around drunken kisses that Harry didn't push away and even encouraged as he waved away Remus in the doorway.
"I love you, god, I fucking love you."
The words that Sirius whispered into Harry's chest as the younger man held him tightly, panting from exertion as neither of them dared to breathe a word about that train, that platform, and the goodbye that had meant so much and had been so wrong.
Don't look back.
You've been the only thing that's right in all that I've done.
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As always, feedback would be lovely.