Rating: T
Summary: You'll only tarnish her, Sirius. Only James can make her shine. For Static Lull, for the Drabble Request Thread at the HPFC. Title from an ee cummings poem.
my wonderful jealousy is dark
Sirius likes to pretend that there isn't a reason that he pursued Lily; likes to pretend that he isn't jealous of everything James has. Marlene tells him that he's stupid, wanting Lovely Lily Evans when he's as fucked up as he is. You'll only tarnish her, she says. Only James can make her shine.
And she does, with the diamond ring on her finger and white roses in her hair on the day she marries James.
-
Lily likes to pretend that she never found Sirius attractive; that even though for 6 years of her life she hated his guts, she was all for James. She knows she's lying when she runs her fingers across his collar bone when he's asleep, one arm curved around her spine.
He's most beautiful when he's asleep.
-
"Don't pretend you're in love with me, for god's sake."
He's incredulous- the flower picked from the grounds wilting in his hand just like he wilts under her gaze.
"Sirius, you don't fall for anyone. It's just how you are. I know that I of all people am least likely to change that- so don't pretend, you're kidding no one. And besides, I don't love you, so it isn't fair for you to love me."
"I suppose you're right." He throws the flower away and catches Lily's lips with his, but his feelings can't be thrown away so easily.
-
After they're married he moves in with Remus and contemplates suicide- but taking on more and more dangerous missions for the Order that no one else seems to want to touch seems the easier way out. It gives him a reason to evade sitting in James and Lily's kitchen with a black coffee and a grimace while watching James tickling Lily's chin; but most importantly, it gives him a reason to evade Lily herself.
-
One day Lily announces she's pregnant and forfuck'ssake there are no order missions and he has to tag along to the enormous party and play happy families. But then Lily pulls him aside- James sees, but he loves them both so much that he just waves cheerily and gets back to receiving father tips from Arthur Weasley, whose wife Molly is pregnant for the sixth time- and she's holding his face in his cool hands.
"I never thanked you," she says, looking up at his face, as if trying to memorise every premature line of it.
"For what?" he asks, wishing he didn't care.
"You never told James."
"I love him."
Lily nods, understanding. "I never apologised, either."
"For what?"
"For making you love me."
"I didn't," he says, but far too quickly.
"I still have the flower you gave me when you told me- after you left I found it and kept it. I did believe you, by the way. I just didn't want to."
"Why?" he asks, almost feeling embarrassed at the teenage flower giving.
"Because I didn't want to admit that I loved you myself."
-
He's still in love with her when she dies; still in love with her when he pulls her body from the wreckage and just holds her, limp and unresponsive, in his arms. The baby beside him cries for his mother, but he ignores his godson because at the moment, he needs her more.
Her voice rings in his head and for the first time since he was eleven he sobs, sobs into her hair as he listens to her tell him things he shouldn't have believed.
"And besides, I don't love you."
-
"So I guess we're over."
"Yes. We were never really together, so we mustn't get upset. I have James and you can have... Marlene. It's always how it was meant to be."
"Oh, well that's okay then," he says sarcastically, slipping into one of his moods that even she can't drag him out of.
"Oh you'll live," she snaps, and walks away, and he realises that Marlene was right- all he could ever do was tarnish her, because she's never looked less beautiful as when she walked away from him.
-
In Azkaban Sirius clings to two things- primarily his innocence, of course, and Lily. Tarnished old Lily, faded and worn because she reacted with bad air. He doesn't regret anything, and he knows that she didn't either, because even if the air is bad and tarnishing, breathing it is necessary to live.