Smoke
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Harry Potter, or any of the characters mentioned in this story, unless stated otherwise. Rated for some sexual content, violence and language. Any similarities to real life are purely coincidence and I will not be held responsible! Thanks!
WARNING: WILL CONTAIN IMPLIED SLASH, IMPLIED SEX, and A LOT OF ANGST. This ain't fluff, kiddies. Ye be warned
Author's Note: this was inspired when I was smoking a cigarette, and the phrase 'there's something poetic about cigarette smoke' popped into my head. It just sort of stuck with me, and as I let the rest of the first paragraph form in my head, I suddenly had this plot bunny; so (needless to say) I then crushed out my cancer stick, opened up a new page and…it just sort of poured out of me. I'm rather proud of it, despite the fact it's dark and depressive; I think it's done in a pretty way. Anyhooters please review and tell me what you thought!! 'Rock Lobster!!' Cheers.
XXX
There's something poetic about cigarette smoke. The way it wafts up into the air, carving out its own delirium of shapes and spirals unlike any that came before or will come after. I remember the first time we made love and how afterward, we lay there in your bed, sharing a cigarette and contented looks. Neither of us spoke; just watched the smoke swirling and curling majestically from the smoldering tip of that white stick and each other's mouths. It was like a slice of something sinful and delectable. I could still taste you in my mouth and I wondered if you could taste me.
Every time after that, we would share a smoke after a roll in the sheets and always, we would lie in silence and watch the smoke weaving intricate patterns above our heads. Then you'd smile at me and my heart felt full. I loved you. I'm not ashamed to say it now, not like I was all those years ago. In the throes of ecstasy with you, I would think it to myself, that I loved you wholly and completely, but I could never say it out loud to you. I didn't want to burden you with useless sentiments and emotions that I was sure you never reciprocated. But as surely as the smoke curled from the end of our cigarette (although it inevitably was produced by you), I would think it and sleep could always come easy.
And when you told me about the others you shared your bed with, I could feel that soft warm security slip away a little more. On the outside I smiled and shook my head and rolled my eyes in a flawless mask of what you wanted to see. Inside I was furious; with you, with them, but mostly myself. How could I love you when I know what we shared was never going to be more than what it was?
James' wedding was hardest. I watched you in your drunken oblivion with his cousin, that blonde-haired blue-eyed beauty I wished I could be with every fibre of my being. You charmed her shamelessly as I sat on the sideline, my lonely cigarette smoke stinging my eyes less harshly than my tears and my drink doing nothing to comfort me. She smiled and blushed and melted at your words and I knew what was coming. I wondered if you'd share a cigarette with her like you did with me, back when we were young and I was still naïve enough to think you might one day love me back.
The day you went away, trapped in a false truth for something you never did, I said those loaded words aloud to myself for the first time. 'I love you'. But you were gone and I hated myself for thinking that you probably deserved it. I finished an entire pack of those cancerous sticks to myself that night, just lying in my solitary bed, watching the smoke curl and twist and fade into nothingness as hot tears spilled down my face. I knew, deep down, you hadn't done it, that you couldn't have, but even if I'd told someone, who would believe me?
It was as though a part of me died that night they took you away, and in a way, part of me had. And all the long years that spanned until we met once more were a hell from which I could never wake. Days blurred into one another like smoke rings into the frosty winter air, but I never stopped loving you. I didn't want to believe you were free when I heard, but my hopes soared anyway. Maybe you would come back and we could be together like how things were before. Never mind that you were on the run and didn't deserve me, I hoped nonetheless.
And then we met that night again. It was bittersweet and wholly too short. I wanted to hold you and have you hold me in return, tight and comforting the way we did when we were younger, but I suppose it was never meant to be. That cruel temptress Fate assured it. But together we were, once things had settled down, and though we didn't have the same spark and heat before, somehow what we shared in those brief moments through the night meant even more to me. And I longed to say those heavy three words, even more than before, but still I couldn't. Even though you had a sort of unexpected family, I felt, maybe, I was somehow a part of it and that was enough. Like the smoke curling from our respective cigarettes (long had the time when we could bear to share passed), we danced beside and through and within another, and the winter of my life blossomed into sudden unexpected spring.
But it was only a vague, fleeting spring, entirely too short and over before it had seemingly started. Then, when you fell into nothingness, fading away before my very eyes like a wisp of smoke or a hot flame snuffed out by the winds of destiny, I was alone again. Winter, with a vengeance at the lazy, contented smiles we had shared in our spring, returned, harsher and bitterer than ever before. I was frozen inside. And though I went through the paces of the average man's life; marriage, a son, and making love to a wife I didn't love; still, I ached for you. Ached to tell you those three words that had never seemed important enough to lay at your feet.
So now I sit here, lost and confused and hating myself with a biting fury. I can say those words out loud, as redundant as they seem. I loved you. No, I still love you, because you can't be gone. And it seems a perfect irony that the one thing we used to share in those blissful minutes after heated teenage lovemaking sums up my life completely. An insignificant white stick, useless as a second belly button, blazing into glory when it meets with the blinding, brilliant heat of an unquenchable flame. And while it burns white hot at first, slowly, as that flame is pulled away, it turns to ash and smoke, and eventually, into nothingness. It's my life to a perfect tee and even though I can't stand pulling from those smokes that you assured me would never be addictive, I cannot stop now.
Yes, there's something poetic about cigarette smoke. The way it wafts up into the air, carving out its own delirium of shapes and spirals unlike any that came before or will come after. Just like there's something poetic about a friendship turned to love. The way it heats and builds and finally, just when you think it can't possibly go on forever, it dies. I'm dead inside without you…my love, my flame, my friend…my Sirius.
XXX
Author's Note: I think I'm getting high off permanent marker fumes…I decided to doodle on my closet door. Now there's a sweet cartoon of the Marauders and Lily on it. Heh, heh…I'm such a nerd. Any hoot, erm…REVIEW!! Muchos love! Cheers.
PS. – Ahahaa, since I'll most likely NOT post this before Halloween, I have to tell you all about the wicked costume I'm wearing to my friend's party. I totally am going as a Hogwarts student (from Ravenclaw, 'cause that's undoubtedly where I would be put). LMAO. Yes, I know I'm a huge nerd…you love it though. Just like I love my sister for asking why I had a blue sweater vest, because wasn't it supposed to be red and yellow or whatever? Bless her and her naïveté.