Disclaimer: So…since this is fanfiction, anything you recognize is not mine.

Warnings: Slash, I guess (that means male/male), song lyrics (but it isn't a song fic, it's just where I got the title from), and angsty Remus.

A/N: This is a different take on how Remus comes to grip with his sexuality than my other story, "I Trust You," to which I may add an additional part, which will include his father finding out (this is not a shameless plug this is not a shameless plug this is not a shameless plug). :insert sheepish grin: Aaaaanyway, on to the story…

Regrets are Better Left Unspoken

By Finnity

Hate the mind, regrets are better left unspoken

For all we know, this void will grow and

Everything's in vain, distressing you though it leaves me open

Feels so right, but I'll end this all before it gets me...

Call your name every day, when I seem so helpless

I'm falling down, but I'll rise above this, rise above this

Forty eight ways to say that I'm feeling helpless

Falling down, falling down, but I'll rise above this, rise above this doubt

Seether; 'Rise Above This'

Remus was literally worrying the hair off his head; he'd tugged several, painful bits and would swear he should have been bald with the amount he'd flung from his tense fingers. Somewhere in limbo, aka wizard post, a mistake was clenched very dutifully in the claws of his time-worn barn owl thousands of feet in the air, on its way to the object of Remus's anxiety, and the premature end of his very life. Well, now that wasn't true… If it were in limbo, he wouldn't have a problem; the letter would have been vanished into nonexistence. Oh, if only. Why did he have to write to him? He could blame it on being sleep-deprived and pensive, but he'd gone and done something he swore he'd never do: gone against his own better judgment. Now he was going to learn his lesson the hard way… Oh, how he wished he could take it all back, those stupid, stupid words (why must they always fail him) and that stupid, stupid letter….

Sirius,

I went to a funeral today. Morbid things, they are. Much worse then they are portrayed in stories and muggle films. There was a girl who died, my second cousin or something; we never knew each other that well… And I had to talk to her parents and other relatives, consoling and apologizing for their daughter's early death as if that would make things better. I never understood that; why am I apologizing? I had no hand in her death. Yes, it's a tragedy, but what are repeated "I'm so sorry for your daughter's death" going to do, really. If it were me that lost a loved one, I would not want to have my pain on display like that. I would want to be alone, to come to terms in the privacy of my own four-walled, book-laden sanctuary.

Anyway, this girl was young. Really young, too. Not even a year older than me, Sirius. Yesterday should have been her fifteenth birthday. It really got me thinking. About life and how it can be taken away as easily as a swish-and-flick of the wrist, which I suspect was the cause of the poor girl's demise (it was never explained, and nobody asked). These are dangerous times. Anyone could be next. I could be next. And when I die, I want to have everything squared away; no loose ends, no wondering about missed opportunities. No what if's or if only's. I don't want to have any regrets, Sirius, or die with the weight of secrets. You can understand that, can't you?

I don't even know if I understand. It's late, I'm tired, I can't sleep, and the atmosphere is just so damn melancholy; I can't think straight with the bulk of it. I'll regret this in the morning, I've no doubt. But this needs to be done, I can feel it, and I have to do it now before I've had time to think about it, let it all sink in, and reconsider; I'll leave that until the morning, along with the nausea that is sure to follow. By now you're probably bored out of your mind; I can almost hear you shouting at the page: Come on, Moony, enough with the chitchat. Out with it, man!

Okay, here it goes. I'll say it the simplest way I know how: I like you. I like you a bit more than I think I'm supposed to. I don't know for how long, or when I first realized, as there was no shock of realization; I didn't wake up one day, have it all click and say, "By George, I think I fancy my best mate!" God no; it all just happened gradually, and I have no idea when everything about our relationship changed, when the transition from best mate to, well…more, occurred.

Was it when I was defending the length of your hair to my mother (it's the rock-star look, Mom, it's supposed to be that long. The girls like it, anyway…)? Or when I started paying more attention to Quidditch, noticing your improvement and wow! Did you see what Sirius just did? That was bloody brilliant, all without fully realizing I was even doing it, let alone the why? But then, how about when I started getting amused every time you interrupted my studying? You may not think this so significant, but remember how I used to get so annoyed with you; I even evaded you in the library. Somewhere- again, I'm not exact really sure when- but that seemed to change. I ceased my library study sessions and began studying deliberately in front of you. I put it to slacking off, too lazy to visit the library. It wasn't. And I could always count on you to be consistent, ripping the book from my hands and engaging me in conversation. I didn't even cringe when the book crashed to the ground. That should have been my first clue, I suppose. I should have been worried then. But you were regaling me with your current exploits, smiling a mile wide and gesticulating widely, and I couldn't bring myself to care. You make my brain go numb, apparently.

I know this may come as a bit of an unwelcome surprise. I'm sorry. I don't want to burden you. I would just like to have one less secret to keep, and I felt you ought to know. You don't have to respond. We can pretend like this never happened; that's up to you. The proverbial ball is in your court. But please, I wouldn't want to jeopardize the state of the marauders over this, so please don't tell James or Peter. I know I'm pushing my luck, and being capricious and selfish, by dumping this on you and expecting you to be okay with it, but I really don't want things to change between us; I love our friendship above all things, but I felt I should be honest. I figured that since you accepted my "furry little problem" you might tolerate this. Again, I'm sorry.

Your (apologetic) friend,

Remus

After a week and still no reply, Remus had resigned himself to chewing his lip until it bled, wondering whether Sirius had gotten his letter yet and if there was still time to retract it. His mother had come home one afternoon to witness him seated on the couch staring blankly ahead, gnawing away at a profusely bleeding lip. After two weeks, he'd finally admitted that Sirius would certainly have received and read the letter, and theoretically should have sent a reply, by now. As every morning after, once he'd checked the window for any sign of Scops and was rewarded with not even a glimpse of the ancient owl, he locked himself in his room. Which was useless; his parents could spell it open effortlessly. Despite being the self-proclaimed rational marauder, he had a propensity for clichés and the tired out woe is me dramatics. He dejectedly flung himself upon his bed and did nothing for an hour but lie uncomfortably with his face mashed in his bunched-up blankets.

Then he did what he always did when he was stressed, or anxious (or any other time, really); he read. Except that he wasn't really reading. His eyes skimmed the same ten, fifteen, however many, words; none of which he retained or even understood at the time. The sentences blurred and faded, transforming into the incessant, insistent words of his inner monologue, that never quite knew when to stay the bloody hell away; his brain always was too stubborn. Tenacious little thing, thoughts.

He couldn't stop thinking about Sirius. His heart was hammering so fiercely against his ribcage, he could sparsely hear his own thoughts. He would have been grateful for the escape from the self-destructive little buggers, if not for the stinging pain each beat forced him to suffer. It was almost unendurable. What did it mean that he hadn't return his letter? Obviously, it wasn't good. Did he read it and was just shocked into paralysis? Was he speechless, not knowing what to say and hoping Remus would take back his words and save him from the awkwardness of a response? Or was he disgusted and hoping Remus would take it back… or, worse yet, keep away from him?

Remus took quill to paper and diligently let confused words flow…

Sirius,

I know that was a lot to bombard you with. I wouldn't blame you if you were weirded out. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to talk to me for a while (however long you need; forever, if that's the case). It would kill me a little inside, I'm not going to lie, but that's not what matters.

Sirius, just give me something so I know that you've gotten my letter (I'm kind of hoping you didn't right now…), and so that I know you are still alive, ha ha. You're worrying me, Padfoot. No matter what you're feeling (bewilderment, incoherence, repulsion…), I have been your friend for nearly six years; I think it's fair for me to feel that I deserve some sort of response. Just so I have something- anything- to go on.

Your friend (hopefully)?

Remus

He couldn't bring himself to send it. If Sirius wanted to take his time responding, fine. Remus could allow him that; he's been given way more than Remus could ever be expected to handle had the shoe been on the other foot. Maybe he'd save his words for a face-to-face confrontation... And if, and Remus felt a pang just below his belly at this thought, if Sirius hadn't replied because he wanted to stop all correspondence, well then... Remus would have to comply with that as well; he would never want to force a friendship. He'd been lucky for the years he'd gotten. And besides, he's still got the memories. Even a few saved photographs and cherished letters.

"Letters?"

Remus stood at platform 9 ¾, visibly gobsmacked. Attached to him was one Sirius Black, an assumed former friend, with his arms wound tightly around Remus's small frame in an obviously friendly embrace. Not an attempt to strangle him, as Remus had initially thought.

Remus had reluctantly extricated himself from his friend's(?) too-welcome hold. "Did you get any of my letters?" he asked, even when his good sense told him not to look a gift horse in the mouth, because he had to know; the uncertainty would gnaw at his psyche like his aunt Julie at a turkey leg.

"Letters?" Sirius answered, looking at him as if he were mad. "Yes. You told me about your mom making you help her in the garden after a stray dog trampled her peonies, and I wrote you back, telling you to stop complaining because my mom asked me to help her out by not being such a filthy bloodtraitor, remember?"

"Oh, no, I- yes, I remember. I meant," Remus searched his mind for the right words; they were there somewhere, floating around in his cerebral fluid, or surfing his gyri or something, but why wouldn't they stop their swimming and form a coherent thought for him. Damn those words and their frequent, unauthorized vacations!

"You didn't get a letter…say, three weeks ago? You can say no even if you did, if that's what you want…"

Again, Sirius peered at him through narrowing eyes as if he were interacting with a patient at a mental institution. "What are you… No, I didn't get any letters. None since the one about helping your mother in the garden. That was before I left for France."

"You were in…" Remus had never been so grateful to his aging and incompetent owl. He'd have to give her an extra treat next time he sees her.

"Yes, vacationing with the family in France. Not even the French girls were consolation enough for my family's utter presence." He stuck his tongue out in distaste, scrunching up his face in an impossibly endearing way. Then his features seemed to relax in relief. "So you did send them? The letters? All this time I thought you were mad at me or something."

"Oh, no…I- why would you…?" It's like his brain has decided to time travel millions of years back through the evolutionary scale. Where had his impeccable vocabulary decided to hide?

"When I didn't get a response to the last letter I'd written you, I thought I'd offended you by telling you of my family's bigoted doings," Sirius explained. "I had to go to that convention, Moony. But don't worry," a wild smile tugged at his entire face, "I dung-bombed the place the next time I was forced to go. It was brilliant."

"Er, that's great, Sirius…" Remus was unable to get past the fact that Sirius truly had not received his letter. "…so you really didn't get any letter from me?"

"No, Remus, I didn't," he laughed. "Got some from James and a couple from Peter though. Why; were they important?"

"Um…"

After all the heartache he'd been through, the panic… His stressed heart told him no; it was tired of the pain. And if his heart was opposed, even after Sirius was draped over him like a very clichéd curtain, being his usual charming self, and even after his heart-melting threshold had been lowered from being Sirius-deprived for three months, well, then he had no choice but to listen. Even his head seemed to agree, and his head and his heart very rarely concurred. He wasn't going to repeat all that anxiety. This was obviously a sign, and chance to start over. This entire dilemma began from a fear of missed opportunity, and a fear of dying with regrets. Well, this would be a missed chance, wouldn't it? And, he reasoned, he should live his life to the fullest before he dies, not be wallowing in regret and unhappiness for trying to free his conscience of one little secret.

Remus silently thanked whatever force above had granted him this opportunity, and replied with as much contrived casualness as he could muster, "No, not important. Just the standard stuff, really."

Sirius smiled, slinging an arm across Remus's shoulders. "Well, alright then; let's make up for three weeks' missed correspondence, shall we?"

The End

A/N: Review, constructively criticize, point out grammatical/spelling mistakes, or do whatever. Just don't flame please :)