Title: Waiting
Author: Orlandoinabedsheet (CC)
Dedication: For my own voice.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: They're JK's not mine, got it?
Summary: Three voices in the night.
A/N: we're suspending disbelief that the owl gets from Remus' to a cheesy American hotel in about four hours, okay? Good. (Perhaps it uses the floo network)
*Sirius*
I stand here beside the pool of some cheesy hotel, half a world away from you. I stare at the moon, full and cold, hateful. Barefoot and shirtless I'm terribly underdressed but I don't feel the bite of the freezing concrete beneath my feet, of the chill wind across my skin. Nor do I feel the slicing heat of the memories that flicker through my mind, brought back by the physical sensations. I only feel empty. How could it be that in hard times when the world was dark I had the light of an Angel, but now in a world where there is light and hope all I have are memories and the knowledge that my own fear drove my Angel away? The thought makes me shiver. Worst of all I think you'd take me back, but how could I do that to you? How could I ask you to love a broken creature like me, who never deserved you in the first place?You, James, Lily, Harry and the traitor were my family. I loved you all. But you were my Angel, my sunshine. Now you and Harry are all that are left. Harry needs me, but you're still an Angel, still above needing a dog. I was a cage and I still would be. Yes I love you more than anyother ever could but that doesn't give me the right to sap your strength, to tie your soul. To ask you to bind yourself to a broken shell of a man. But I do so miss you my love. I wish I could howl to the moon. I wish I could lift my eyes to your. I wish I could be worthy of what you offer. But I can't and until I can be of some use to someone, rescue Harry at the least, I can't accept the offer to try, no matter how sweet your words are. With tears in my eyes I stoop down and pick the parchment off the concrete and hold my tears as I return to staring at the moon.
*Remus*
I sit beside the window of a home that should be ours, not mine and watch the twilight dwindling. Soon I'll lose myself to Moony, and he'll take his turn to lament your foolish belief that you don't deserve us but now is my time, and I'm going use it, even if it is futile, to remind you once more that we're waiting for you, and we will wait, as long as it takes for you to come home to us. I know you always raised us above you, like we were something to be worshiped, but how you could never see that I loved you with all my soul, and thought you were worshipful as well I'll never know. Moony you understood, he was easy for you to figure out, you were everything he wants, and you still are, a pack mate, a brother, a mate, and my love as well. You know he cries for you? He stalks about my mind searching for you, he knows you should be here with us, and he knows as well as I do that you're not coming. I write to you of my love, but this is the last time I ask nicely, if you don't return home inside a week I'll play the only card I have left: that you're torturing me by staying away, battering my heart and rending my soul. As I watch the owl flap away I feel Moony take control.
*Moony*
I pace his mind by day, and the floor by night. I wait. I have learned patience over the years, it is an extension of the hunt, so simple and yet so torturously boring. I'm there to witness all his attempts to lure you back, I thought I'd taught him more about the hunt. There is one thing that always brought you running to our side. Pain. You can't stand the thought that we hurt. Now you're making us hurt and he won't tell you so. So I have to wait. I howl to mother moon and do just that, knowing eventually he'll get it right.