each man kills the thing he loves

--Oscar Wilde

i.

Sirius Black fights for pride, for honour, for love.

He's never been the violent type, but his temper gets the best of him on several occasions. Sirius succumbs to its every will, his body twisted and writhing with rage as he flies, soaring to new heights with his heart alone as his fists land the final blow.

Like many things in his life, he never plans for it to happen. It just does.

There's regret and damnation, smeared across his face in crimson red as he stands, the victor (and the defeated). For every fight Sirius wins, there's a million tears to lose, and million different ways to say I'm sorry. He never takes them.

As he scrubs the blood from his fingers, rinsing the stains from his heart with the frayed edge of a rag, he wonders if that says anything about him at all.

Other than the fact that he can't control his heart.

ii.

Once or twice, it's James that gets the better of him.

There's the wind in his hair and the fire in his eyes and the pain in his fists as they connect, one, two, three, come on Sirius, this is just like boxing in the yard with Regulus at home.

He wears James' pride in his mumbled apology and his glasses in his knuckles, tiny little diamonds of glass embedded into his fingers.

"Why, Sirius, why?"That's all Remus has to say.

"Because. He doesn't understand, that's why."

For someone who can write an award winning Transfiguration essay in fifteen minutes, words sure don't mean much at all. Sirius has no idea what to say, or even if there's anything to say at all.

It's in his arrogance, James' ability to believe in everything and excel at everything and have everything Sirius wants. The seeds of jealousy and anger have been sown, and Sirius sprouts like a beanstalk, growing taller and stronger in the wake of another's hard work.

"I hate you, James," he whispers into his pillow, covering it in breathy kisses that are created from spite. He never means a word he says.

iii.

Regulus is a shadow, lurking behind his older brother.

It's all fun and games; Sirius pours his pain into Regulus through taunts and whispers, because shadows can't hurt anyone, can they? Regulus is just the shadow, with no chance of fighting back.

There's love and there's hatred and along the way the lines become more and more blurred until there's nothing at all but two boys, reaching for the only places they can truly belong.

Being the victor is only fun until it hurts someone. Sirius breaks Regulus' heart, and he blames it all on love.

iv.

It's the same reason he destroys Remus with a single parting of his lips: "The Whomping Willow."

It's the same reason he destroys Lily for not falling straight into James' arms.

It's the same reason he slowly begins to destroy himself.

Love is what ruins everyone. Sirius is just its most well intentioned victim.

iii.

Marlene is the worst mistake he makes in the best years of his life (or maybe she's the best mistake in the bleakest time), and he's never entirely sure why.

Sirius thinks that it's in the fact that she's as fucked up as him. A circle never ends, and as they weld themselves together in this strange moonlight masque that feels like a dream, they're just spinning round and round in despair.

They're crashing too hard and burning too fast, their childish dreams disappearing in a cloud of smoke (like the one pouring from her cigarette). Marlene tastes like bitterness and howls like a wolf and Sirius has really gotten himself into a mess this time.

"I lov-"

"Don't say it, Black. You know it's not true."

He's just not sure how to untangle himself from her web of desire and win at her games of flirting with death.

He's not sure if he wants to, either.

ii.

Somewhere along the line, he devastates Andromeda, too.

It's the sorrow in her eyes as she watches him scurry off to another Order meeting. It's in the sound of her sigh as she watches him bring home woman after woman in a half-hearted attempt to forget the only one he would always remember. It's in the hole his near misses gouge in her heart, and that's the one wound Sirius cannot see.

He tries to justify her pain with lies: she's just doing what cousins do, she's just worried about bringing up Nymphadora in this world, she's wondering what Bellatrix might do next.

Sirius buries his guilt and sits at her dinner table night after night and never once realises that this is what kills Andromeda the most. She doesn't know how long it will stay like this.

i.

He runs because he has nothing better to do. He tears through the Potters' house, barely noticing the shattered mirrors (he has way more than seven years bad luck, anyway), the crumbling wood and brick and stone, the fallen photographs lying face down on the carpet.

This is the denouement: everything he loves is dead. Most of them, he destroyed.

He can run and fight all he likes, but he can't hide from the effects of his self-destruction.

I missed writing about my Sirius. :( So of course, when jazzbelles decided to run the Oscar Wilde Appreciation Fanfic Challenge on her livejournal, I had to claim Sirius. I had a lot of fun writing this, and I hope you enjoyed it just as much. Whether you did or you didn't, I'd love a review, no matter how long or how detailed.

Lots of love,

Cubie. :3