A/N: Marlene & Sirius – a two shot. This is my first time writing this pairing.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
She hears the whispers when they walk into the meetings together, hears them mutter that a guy like him doesn't deserve a wonderful girl like her. She hears them say that he's just toying with her emotions, that he'll abandon her soon, just another conquest to add to his record. She hears them say she should leave him. But Marlene McKinnon knows better than that, because Sirius Black understands.
They sit together in the corner of the kitchen, Lupin's place tonight (the full moon isn't for another week), and as the meeting goes on around them they crack lewd jokes, laughing too hard amongst a sea of solemn faces and badly disguised tears. Another friend is dead – a muggleborn Gryffindor a few years below them, and though they don't show it, they are hurting behind their smiles, hurting yet laughing because if they didn't they would fall apart and in this war, falling is admitting defeat. And so they laugh, and when Gideon Prewett tells them to shut up and be serious, they crack that stupid name joke, and with a bark-like laugh that never quite rings true no matter how hard he tries, Sirius apparates with her to the outskirts of a town where a pair of death-eaters have been spotted.
It is an ambush, they find out when they finally make it back to headquarters, bearing scars like heroes with no trace of fear in their eyes, instead full to the brim with reckless courage and hidden sorrow for the family they were once again too late to save. Though the fight is over, they are still shaking with adrenaline, but neither of them mention that, lying panting in the rain in the moments after the battle, they shook instead with pure terror as the raindrops wiped the tears from their faces and each pretended they didn't see the other cry. It is an unspoken agreement, formed in the first moments of their friendship; neither will admit that with each death they too die a little inside, but they both know it is true, and they wonder how long they can hold on like this before one of them cracks.
Because they aren't just Sirius and Marlene, the unbreakables, they are people too, but nobody realises the truth, nobody realises that they've been broken all along. Of course, James and Lily suspect something, but Sirius has been broken since the summer of fifth year and he's gotten good at hiding it, even if his laugh is always a touch too loud and his smile a shade too hard to be called happy. And there is nothing that anyone can do about it, not even best friends like James, not even Marlene. But that's alright, because no one can fix her either, and he knows it.
They give their report in a hurry – she's dying for a smoke, and to the surprise of the Order, he joins her, rolling it between his teeth and taking a long drag that nearly makes him choke. Lily gives him 'the look', the one that means she's worried about him, but he escapes with a grin and an offhand "I'm fine," (always "I'm fine,") before they step together into the night, bickering light-heartedly.
Later, lying side by side on her bed in a tangle of sheets and empty bottles, they can pretend that they are normal, that there isn't the chance that they will die tomorrow (he doesn't believe he could die tomorrow but the chance is there all the same), and for a few hours they can feel complete. Because they aren't like James and Lily, who even in the midst of war are madly in love. No, they are cigarettes and bruises and too much whiskey, and they are definitely not in love.
Because in spite of everything, Sirius Black understands.
A/N: Please review, otherwise I don't know if there's anything I'm doing wrong.