Title: The Reality
Words: ~500
Rating: G
Warnings: Sadness :(, Discussion of "canon" events.
Summary: Remus and Sirius have a short discussion of what could have been, and what never can be. Implied slash.
A/N: I am currently writing a fic that certainly got away from me. The plan was for it to be 2000 words, or something. It is now 90,000 words and no where near done! This drabble came to me and I needed to post something, so here it is!
Remus sat on the edge of Sirius' bed, picking at a frayed piece of fabric. "Do you ever think about how things would have been if things were…different?" He had a wan look about him, his tattered clothes hanging limply from his frame, his scarred hands moving nervously.
"What do you mean?" Sirius knew what he meant. He wanted to be wrong. Let me be wrong.
"I don't know. How things would have been if we had…you know." He inclined his head and stared at a spot on the wall, shifted, rubbed his hands together.
Sirius set his book, still open, on his abdomen. "I don't know." I don't want to know.
"If we had gotten together," Remus said, winced after the word together slipped out of his mouth. "I didn't…not like that."
"Yeah, you did." Sirius sighed. Why couldn't Remus look at him? "I don't know. Maybe I wouldn't have gone to Azkaban. Maybe Lily and James would still be alive. Maybe nothing would have changed." Maybe we'd be happy. Moments of silence passed between the two of them. Remus continued to stare at the nonexistent thing on the wall. "Do you ever think about it?" Sirius sighed. He didn't want to have this conversation. He had had it so many times in his head and he knew that it would never go the way he wanted it to. He was tired of living in the same space as Remus and thinking, every day what if. He was tired of waking in the morning and wanting to cry. He was tired of missing what he had never had.
"Think about what it would have been like if I wasn't a coward?"
"Remus…"
"No, Sirius," he said, his voice eerily flat, void of the shame or sadness he should have felt. "It was my fault. All of it. If I had had the nerve to just…do it." He shook his head. "I never should have left that night. I should have stayed."
"You were drunk."
"I was a coward. I think about the way things could be. Still."
"No." Remus still wouldn't look at him. "It's too late." Don't.
"It's not too late. I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry. I won't be toyed with, Remus." I can't do this anymore.
"I'm not toying."
"You're the same person you always were. You're not a coward. You're a preservationist. I understand. You have to protect yourself." And I have to protect myself.
"Please, Sirius. Just –"
"No."
"We could have been so good together."
"That's just it, isn't it?" Sirius picked his book back up and swallowed the nausea, the sick lump in his throat and the bitterness behind his eyes that always accompanied thoughts of loving Remus and having Remus love him back. "We could have been." Remus knew he had been dismissed. Didn't say anything, just stood and left the room.