A/N: Title shamelessly pilfered from the Frank Cappello film. I'm a liberal kleptomaniac, I know. Everything else is mine though, except for the characters (although, I have to admit that my style is reminiscent of cupid-painted-blind's... go check out her fics, they're really good)


He Was a Quiet Man

They both wrote, in their different ways and for their different reasons. Both were somewhat popular, when surrounded by the people who could appreciate them, but they were both side-characters, the ones that never gain recognition.

(no one wants to admit they were heroes, no one saw their sacrifices)

(no one wanted to)

-

Each word is an agony to write, yet it is as if each letter is paramount to his existence. The man is living in the substrate: these are the indefinite trails he follows, the impossible paths.

(no, not so much a path as a vast terrain sprawled before his eyes waiting for him to set foot on it)

And then he hesitates. Because he knows if he is to step in he will surely fall through the cracks and potholes, he will surely sink and drown.

(but he knows also that if he does not, the terrain, everything, they, will disappear and melt and vanish just like steam into air)

He cannot deny the presence of the lure and the excitement: all the possibility and promise just weighs on him so heavily.

For the moment, undecided, he remains hunched within anxiety, paused in the stillness and silence, as ugly and as terrifyingly present as dreams.

(as dreams)

He is so small and insignificant that-

(I wonder if anyone will notice me)

(can anybody see me?)

(can anybody see me?)

-

regulus

On the final day, as he walks into that cave, he knows he has made the right choice.

(still, he cannot help thinking: damn them)

(damn them all)

-

severus

He never told her about the textbook, nor about anything he had ever written in it. So he does not blame himself when she excels at the subject, just slightly better than him, and he feels a little gnaw of jealousy. He uses this as a way to excuse himself every time he insults her or calls her names, even though they are friends.

(he finds it laughable, oh the cliché of it all: to hate them, hate them all for their beauty, whilst they fly further away, out of his reach, like swans)

(still, he thrives on them)

(damn them all)


A/N: Sometimes, I think some characters are too similar to each other, that they could almost be the one and the same. I must be getting dementia, for sure...

xx VM