Disclaimer: I don't own them. The characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
Two
By Bohemian Storm
He feels like two people now, curled up on his side in this small, hard bed. Even when the children smile at him, even when Molly fusses over his weight (he's still too thin, he knows he is), even when Tonks nudges him roughly and asks him for another drink, he feels split. He's fragmented, torn, one man with an eye on death (it's on his heels, baby, always has been) and another man with a grin and a joke. He doesn't mind so much during those times, because none of them know him well enough to see two men behind his eyes.
sat on a wall ...
It's in this bed, however, that it's the worst. In this bed it's harder to pretend both men are one. He spends the nights pleading with both sides to just calm down, to forget that they're different, to just be one. Just for once. It's all he asks of them. There were so many nights in Azkaban that he dreamed of living exactly how he is now, so he doesn't understand why they can't stop fighting over what's going to happen. He doesn't want death, but a part of him yearns for it. Part of him thinks it would just be easier.
He wants to know what happened to the dreamer. That man he said goodbye to twelve years ago isn't the same anymore. The ambition is gone, replaced with a hard, scared shell. Between kisses he tries to search for him, but he thinks that maybe something split Moony into two pieces as well.
had a great fall ...
Two sides to every story, he reminds himself, his fingers tracing patterns in the dirty windowpane. He lost twelve years in that place, he's only now piecing together everything that happened on the outside. Moony whispers bits and pieces of history to him in the night, emotion glossing over the real truth behind the words he speaks. He always tries to make it seem like less than it is.
"Dementors," Moony whispers. "They're at the door."
He knows that it's only a dream. Whatever words come from Moony now will be about a dream world where everything is either far worse or far better than it is here. He wonders sometimes what it would be like to slip into a dream forever (can you Avada Kedavra yourself?) and just let go. He imagines that the pieces would all float free in that world, coming together and moving apart until maybe they made sense. Until he wasn't two people anymore, just one man. Just one Sirius Black. He's forgotten what it's like (but did he ever really know in the first place?) to be one person.
all the king's men ...
Two sides, two men, two stories, two people. It's all split right down the middle. Good and evil. Right and wrong. Black and white. He doesn't think he fits in either category. He's a good man (or one part of him is, at least), but he knows he wouldn't hesitate to murder the rat that caused him to lose everything. Is that right or wrong, he wonders. To kill is wrong, he knows this, but they're in a war. War is defined and won by death and murder (murder, kill, torture, it's all the same when he thinks about Peter), but he's not sure where he belongs. Good and evil. Which is he?
Fingers trace the line of his back, sliding over the curve of muscle, the outline of his ribs.
"Sleep," he whispers, wanting nothing more than to hold that hand in his own and ask why everything is so different.
couldn't put him back together again
"Love you." The voice seems to come from a distance and he slips into a dreamless sleep.
Sleep is always dreamless now. He wants to dream, but he knows that dreams are for the carefree and innocent. He's not that anymore. Neither part of him can ever return to that.
While he sleeps, the man lying beside him shatters inside and he cries. It's too easy to see Padfoot's pain and it breaks him, it tears him. He wants to make it better (he even tries some nights), but it's meant to be this way.
He doesn't remember the day the world started to tear. He thinks he'd remember something like that. He kisses Padfoot's shoulder and tries to sleep.
End