Love-and-hate relationship / I love you / After Sirius ran away to live at the Potter's
He hated when she was a know it all.
She hated his smugness.
He loved the smirk in her eyes.
She loved the way he was so serious when no one was looking.
He hated that pink shirt that she wore to her last date.
She hated his leather jacket.
He screamed at her when she didn't understand that the Ravenclaw was a prick and she shouldn't waist her time with him.
She yelled at him when he hexed the Ravenclaw she was going out because "he felt like it".
He hugged her when her cat died.
She grabbed her hand after Reg ignored him at the Great Hall.
He knew they weren't together.
She knew they weren't apart.
That's why she got mad when on the night of the 3rd of August he didn't owled her. She had to hear it from James.
That's why he didn't owled her but felt grateful when she showed up at the Potter Manor.
It was the middle of August but the night was cold, or at least Sirius felt it was cold for a summer evening. He was at home just 15 minutes ago, he remembered yelling at Kreacher for getting in his way but his mother thought the House Elf was right, that Sirius was wrong, and that he was disrespectful to the family name. He snorted some answer, and everything was a blur of anger and shock. And then shecursed him. She cursed her own son. So Sirius snapped.
And now he was sitting on a couch in one of the rooms at James' House not quite knowing how him and his truck arrive there.
She looked at him, slouching in the couch, looking; and yet not looking; at his hands. She was mad, not quite knowing why, they weren't together but she felt that she was more than the average, they were friends and that had to meant something. But all her anger went away when she saw him. He looked so different, sad even. So she decided "anger" was not the right word for the feeling she was having.
Marlene sat besides Sirius. He was startled, not for someone to be by his side, but for it to be Marlene.
He looked inquiring at her.
"Jamie owled me," she answered simply, he nodded and kept brooding.
Marlene knew she shouldn't push him. She knew that he eventually would've share what ever was going on his mind, but she never saw him this confuse in his life. She took one of his hands in hers.
"Did they do something to you?" she asked quietly after a while, it was a risk, but she was starting to get worried, this was not the Sirius she knew.
Sirius tensed at the question, he didn't know how to answer it, or if he would want to answer it. So he shrugged unconvincingly.
Marlene nodded assuring him she kind of understood. "You don't deserve this," she said more to herself than to him. He was surprise, and she knew that he felt responsible for the whole thing.
"Is not," she assure him, "You're 15, Sirius, no one deserves this at 15, specially you,"
Sirius shook his head.
"No you don't," she repeated.
"I'm an insufferable brat, I was looking for it," he said in a hoarse voice.
"Yeah you're an insufferable brat, but I don't think you were asking for it, and you don't deserve it," she said again, and saw he didn't believe her.
"You hex everything that dresses green, because they remind you of what your parents force you to be, you're a prankster and a menace to most of my dates. Most of the time I want to hex you to the next month, and like you said; you're insufferable. You're also Jamie's best friend, and Rem's. You defend the first years from the older students and help the second years into Quidditch tryouts. You're good and bad like any other human being, but you mostly choose the good, and if they can't see it is their lost. Is too bad, but the people that love you see it, and we would tell you," Sirius looked at Marlene shocked. "You don't deserve it, and maybe you're better of without them," *she said placing a hand in his cheek.
"You love me?" he said quietly against Marlene's palm.
It wasn't a deep question; he didn't mean it in the romantic way. He was just broken and thought no one would ever love him like his family was suppose to. Like Charlus and Maggie loved James. And he needed to be told that. That he was loved and he wasn't a total waste on life. He never felt so vulnerable, and didn't like it, but he needed to hear those words.
Marlene thought about the question longer than she intended because something in her snapped. Sirius was so vulnerable and real, no walls for the first time, and that made all her walls fall with his. She addressed the question in the whole of it; romantic, no romantic, friendship, family, everything, and even if it scared her, there was only one answer.
Marlene nodded. "Yes Sirius, of course I love you,"
Sirius looked at her again and hugged her, softly. They stayed like that until James came back again.
"Hope you like the guest room, because is yours now, for as long as you want," James said sitting at the other side of the couch and rubbing his best friend in the back while Marlene kept holding on to him.