A/N: Inspired by a song by Martin Joseph, the lyrics of which ('if love means something then there's always maybe') intrigued me so much I decided a drabble was necessary. If you're looking for something a bit more upbeat, M'rika wrote 'Maybe' from the same quote ;)
Disclaimer: The inspiration for this drabble belongs to Martin Joseph, and it's characters to J. K. Rowling.
There Was Always Maybe
The cafe in Belfast was tiny - a cramped cabinet of linoleum and coffee circles like the rings of trees on greasy table tops. The drinks machine hissed ominously, the girl on the counter didn't even look at him as she slid a mug of dull grey slush across great worker/customer divide.
He made the mistake of hanging his coat on the back of one of the chairs, the hem dragging in the shit that had been trodden into the cracked linoleum.
It was cold for the time of year. The old woman at the bus stop, frail and liltingly Irish had agreed, "Arra, I know, it'll only get cold from here, mark you." Looking out through the steam smogged patch of window he had captured, Remus had to agree. The sky was slate grey, and had let go of its few remaining wisps of cloud.
He tried, as the spoon he barely realised he was using clanked against the edges of his mug, to remember why he was here at all. Surely nothing could be dragged from the bottom of the mire in which they had both sunk. Too old, too worn, too broken for love now. But as he thought it he felt the familiar ache, the weight in his stomach that had sat and brooded and growled for twelve long years and he sighed.
He could not be the obstacle here. He would not let himself impede what he knew he wanted more than anything. This shard of normality that was Sirius in his bed, illuminated by the morning sunlight - a chance of a brief reverie before the churn and slog of the day - he would not pass that up. He would not let himself pass that up.
He closed his eyes, and leant his head against his hand, feeling the lines there, the wrinkles, the signs of his premature descent into old age. Love, he thought, was meant to save you from such things.
The bell above the door rattled and he lifted his head to see Sirius, anything but resplendent in a faded blue hoodie he had clearly pinched and a pair of old jeans, his hair badly cut short, standing in the circle of dull light that enclosed the doorway like an airlock.
He turned, and Remus felt his heart leap awkwardly into his throat. For a moment, they stared at each other through sunken eyes, and then Sirius smiled, and Remus knew that in that smile there was a chance. And if love meant something to either of them, he decided, then they would not pass up that chance.