I don't like this fic. But I wrote it and it's going to annoy me until I upload it. It's not related to Sweet Dreams, I just have a thing for sleep-based stories :P
When Sirius wakes up, it's in a bed that he finds himself in far too often these days.
The sheets and walls are fairly plain. The aren't any clothes or books on the floor. There are no signs that anybody has lived in this room. At least, to the untrained eye.
Sirius can see the tiny patch of brown on the nearby rug from where he once spilled a cup of tea. There's a barely visible shard of glass from where he dropped a glass of water. Next to his bed there's another glass of water, that he imagines has been standing there all night.
Sirius closes his eyes again to try and change the room.
When he opens them, an hour has passed. The water has been replaced with a cup of tea. He stares at the stain on the rug. He knows everything that is going to happen, because it's happened hundreds of times before.
He pulls himself up in bed, finds his clothes and his wand lying neatly on the end of his bed. Of course they were there, they always were.
Sirius falls back and shut himself away the world.
He is woken up even later by somebody gently shaking him.
"Sirius?" A voice murmurs. He knows the voice better than his own. "I need to go to work, Sirius. You need to wake up."
Sirius stirs, and sits up. "Thank you." Sirius says, his eyes not meeting Remus's.
"You want anything to eat?" Sirius shakes his head. His headache yells about this. He's hungover, pure and simple. He pulls himself up to sitting.
"I'll be gone within half an hour." He says quietly. Remus nods his agreement, and starts to head towards the door. But he pauses, turns around.
"This can't keep happening." Remus says, staring Sirius directly in the eyes. Remus's hair is greying- he looks tired. But his eyes are the same beautiful colour that they always were, the only reminder of the past Sirius can still see.
"I mean it, Sirius. You can't keep running here whenever you're drunk and you've argued with whoever your current fuck is-"
"Hey!" Sirius says, shocked.
"Sirius, your longest relationship with one of them was two months. They don't mean anything."
"If they don't mean anything, why do I always come here when we argue? Why do I react so much?" Sirius says angrily. "Surely if I didn't care, I wouldn't give a crap if we argued."
"I don't know why you come here, but you know too well why I let you." Remus takes a deep breath. "You know fully well how I feel about you. And I'm so fed up of having you here and then letting you leave. I never even know when you're going to come back. Sometimes it's the next day, sometimes it's half a year later."
"Remus-"
"I mean it. So get dressed and get out. And don't come back unless you're going to stay. I either want us apart all the time... or together all the time."
"We were together."
"For one year in school. That was ten years ago, Sirius. We never had anything else, and I can't let this go on."
"This decision was hard on you, isn't it?" Sirius says, his tone softer. Remus nods.
"Having to tell you not to come back? Hardest thing I've ever done."
"I miss you sometimes." Sirius admits. Remus laughs harshly.
"I miss you all the time, Padfoot." The nickname sends a jolt through Sirius. And then Remus kisses Sirius and they're back in school, laughing gently under their heavy breath.
But then Remus stands up, and the image breaks. And then Remus is leaving and there aren't any goodbyes, there aren't any final chances. Sirius knows that if he's still here when Remus comes back, he can move out of Remus's spare room and into his bedroom.
But he knows that there's no way he can stay, no way he can screw Remus up any more. It's a hurtful kind of pride, like the way Remus treats his lyncathropy. The idea of another part of him being like Remus is almost too much, he almost stays.
But instead he pulls his clothes on that last night he'd left lying on the floor- they hadn't had sex, god no. Sirius might use Remus but he wasn't that bad. Remus meant a hot meal and a warm bed, and occasionally a gentle kiss from the other man when Remus thought he was asleep.
As he locks the door behind him, he wonders if he should leave something. A goodbye note? But goodbye seems final, and goodbye isn't something Sirius wants to say. So he leaves without another moment's pause.
Remus gets in hours later, and the house has no signs that Sirius was ever there. Remus wanders slowly towards the spare room and finds it empty, just like he knew it would be. But he can spy a piece of material under the bead, and he pulls it out.
It's Sirius's jacket. He doubts Sirius will ever come back for it. He should just throw it away, but instead Remus clutches it close to him, breathes in the scent.
And then for the first time in nine years, he's crying.