The World at Large
"Nine times out of ten our hearts just get dissolved.
Well, I want a better place or just a better way to fall."
Modest Mouse
Remus sat at a coffee table in his flat. A cup of quickly-cooling tea was between his hands, and a newspaper was spread out in front of him. His eyes were vacant, focused at nothing in particular, unseeing.
This flat was not his. It was not his just as much as the myriad of flats before it weren't. He didn't always remember the flat number. He didn't always remember what the furniture looked like; or what he had eaten for breakfast, or if he had eaten breakfast.
His jobs were brief. It wasn't often that he kept jobs for more than two months at a time. He stumbled between petrol stations and supermarkets. Generally, he worked two or three jobs at a time. Sleep was something he could do without much of.
He knew that starting over was not what life was about, but it was impossible not to do. Every other month he picked up and moved to another location. It didn't matter much where he was, as long as it was not here; there; wherever he was at the time.
Life was preferable when he didn't associate with anyone, he had quickly found. He didn't want friends and he didn't want love. There had been enough of that. He was twenty-eight and any vestiges of his previous life had been shaken off years ago.
James and Lily were dead. Pettigrew had killed them.
Remus's dulled eyes were not focused on anything. He was reliving. He did this more than he lived now.
When Remus had finished packing his single trunk, he sat on the couch in his and Sirius's flat.
Before Pettigrew had betrayed them, Sirius's arrival had been documented clearly by the sound of loud whistling; the rustling of takeout bags; the scent of Indian food.
Now, Sirius's arrival was silent. The door opened. Sirius stepped inside. The door closed. He dropped a single bag on the counter between the kitchen and sitting room. He shuffled into the kitchen.
"I'm moving," Remus said quietly.
Sirius glanced up from the package of spaghetti he had been removing from the bag.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"I am. You can stay here." Remus's voice was clear though it was quiet, and it was not hesitant.
There was a long silence. There was the sound of a tap running, the click of the stove turning on. A loud clang when the pot was set on the burner.
"Why?"
"I'm going to find another place. I don't know if it will be better."
The silence returned, its presence punctured only by the rustle of pasta and the angry spitting of boiling water.
"You don't love me. I know. I've known for a while." Sirius's eyes did not stray from the dinner he was preparing.
"I'm sorry."
Though Remus had relocated countless times since that day, he still hadn't gotten anywhere that he had wanted. Memories were all that he had, clouded now; he wasn't sure what more he wanted. He didn't want to live. He wasn't sure if he was.