Please see my author page for my SLASH POLICY. All flames must be coherent.
PADFOOT and PRONGS
Drabbles depicting the relationship between Sirius and James; for various challenges, requests, archives, etc.
Also archived at the SiriusxJames Yahoo! Group.
PLEASE UNDERSTAND
Rating: G
Please understand that I'm not trying to be mean or spiteful or cowardly—I would never do that to you, no matter what happened to us... I'm just trying to do what would be better for both of us.
Please understand that it's not because I'm afraid to love you, or don't want to anymore. My love... well, I guess it'll always be there. There is nothing more important to me than that, but... I know there are things more important than me, and... you know, we've all got to make our sacrifices...
Please understand that I would do anything for our love. Anything I had to give to keep us alive would be free for the taking... but, oh God, I can't give that much... there's nothing bloody left for me to give, so I have to take a little, too, otherwise I'll fade into nothing and disappear. It hurts, it really does.
It's not because I don't love you. It's not because I wouldn't go to any lengths to love you, no matter what conditions that may come with. But all I'm doing is giving and giving, losing and losing, and you... well, I guess you're giving as well, more than you want to. You shouldn't have to do this. If I do anymore I think I'll die.
I'm going to leave. I think it would be the best for both of us, good for you so you can do whatever you want... maybe good for me, so I can keep myself sane. I would sacrifice anything I had for you, still will, if you asked, but when the sacrifices no longer do anything... something, someone else has to give, and I think this is the way to do it.
No hard feelings, all right?
---
Pursing his lips, as if not quite satisfied, or perhaps trying not to cry, Sirius folds the letter, adding two knife-sharp creases in the smooth parchment. His hands, long light-pale fingers dancing over the surface, linger for a few seconds, indecisively. He opens the letter again, poises his quill over the paper, and adds, in his quick, fluid script...
---
P.S. I'll be at your wedding, like I promised. You owe me thirty-galleons for tuxedo rental.
---
He adds a "Dear James" to the top and signs his name at the bottom, and the letter is left on James' night-table, to be read over beer and tears...
ONE REQUEST
Rating: G
The starry night sky was above him and the dewy wet grass was below him and his eyes were closed. He waited with baited breath.
The silence smothered him, clamming onto his skin like thick curtains on a hot summer day. And then—
James felt hands grab his arms, pulling them. Fingers intertwined and he felt the curve of his lover's slim waist under his palm. A gentle hand came to rest on his shoulder.
"On one condition," the other man whispered, eyes sparkling.
"Yes?" he replied tentatively, his voice equally quiet.
"Kiss me."
And, admiring the gentle touches of moonlight on Sirius' face, James leaned forward and gave his new fiancé an almost-chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth.
WISTFUL
Rating: G
"Sirius, I'm sorry, I really am, I didn't mean to hurt you--"
"I understand--"
"--but what I did was... unexcusable--"
"Stop apologising. You can't take all the blame on yourself. This is between the three of us--you, me... her."
"I really wish... I hope... I never meant for this to be at your expense, I..."
"I know. I was a fool to think... to think that..."
"I hope... that maybe you and Lily can still get along in the future. You know, I'll always care about you..."
"That's not necessary."
"Just know... I'll always have a place in my heart for you..."
"I don't bloody want it!"
"Sirius?"
"Don't patronise me, James! I don't want a special corner of your heart, a corner of your love. I don't want you to take me and shove me away and hide me somewhere dark where I can't see, and you just... prod at me for your own enjoyment. I'm not like that, James, I can't do that for you."
"I... I..."
Sirius smiled wryly, sadly. "Just take that place in your heart and... save it for Lily. She'll want the whole thing. She deserves it."
"What about you?"
Sirius glanced at the sky, eyelids fluttering under the tranquil morning sun. "You lost the right to ask that question the day you asked her to marry you."
INFLUENZA
Rating: PG
"James, are you all right?" Sirius' expression was worried.
"M'fine," James mumbled from his bedridden state. "Only I think I need a couple more--achoo!--tissues."
Sirius immediately leapt us. "Here, love." He placed the tissues in James' hands and grabbed a damp washcloth from the bedside table. Tenderly, he brushed James' hair back and sponged the sweat off his lover's flushed face.
"S'nice. Feels good."
Sirius frowned slightly. "James, maybe you should see Madam Pomfrey."
"Don't want Madam Pomfrey." James kissed the soft underside of Sirius' arm. "Want you. Would kiss you, but you'd get sick."
"I don't care about that," Sirius said softly. "I probably already got what you have--when I was sick, last month. S'been going around."
"You sure?"
"Of course."
"Good." James tugged Sirius down over him and kissed him firmly on the lips, resting his hands over his friend's slender waist. "You can stay here with me all day, then."
UNNECESSARY QUESTIONS
Rating: PG
He awoke to the feeling of lips on his face, light fluttery kisses that caressed his cheeks, bumped his chin, ghosted over his eyelids.
He opened his eyes, blinking his way toward coherency. "James."
His lover smiled, hair highlighted by the lazy morning curtain-light that brightened his face and eyes. "Knew that would wake you up."
Sirius squinted slightly, delicate morning vision offended by the blatant sunlight. "Wish I could wake up like that every morning, then."
"You can, if you want. Every morning for the rest of our lives."
Sirius paused to look at James' radiant face. "Prongs?"
"Will you marry me?" James blurted in one breath, looking exhausted and exhilarated, grasping Sirius' hands in his own.
It was Sirius' turn to smile. "Did you honestly think you had to ask?"
WHEN DARKNESS FALLS
Rating: PG
He found him there right after the sun had set and the dusky dying light danced on the last blades of grass. The cool blue of starlight had just begun to peek out, and the tiny rivulets kissed and mingled with the last shadows left before the dark-falling.
His steps slowing, he reached out with one hand to touch his lover on the shoulder. "Hey," he said tentatively.
The other man turned around. "James."
"Mind if I join you?" Without waiting for affirmative, James bent down and sat cross-legged next to his dark-haired companion. Sirius remained silent, but inclined his head slightly, and James knew he was grateful for the company.
"I have something for you," James said, shattering the earth-hanging silence. "Here. Don't laugh."
Sirius' grey eyes looked at James questioningly before he reached out to take the proffered box. Slender fingers gently lifted the paper-brown lid to reveal a delicate silver necklace.
James took the thin chain and draped it around Sirius' neck. "Look," he said, grabbing the small charm that hung on the end. "It's supposed to be the stars--see the little specks? It's the night sky."
"James... I don't know what to say."
"I just hope... if you... if you ever feel like I'm not here, this'll remind you that you can't be alone among the stars. Although I can't guess why stars would remind you of me, 'cause you're the one named after a star anyways, but I thought..." James trailed off uncertainly, examining his lover.
Sirius smiled, not his usual wicked grin or exuberant beam, but a soft, endearing, butter-melt smile. "It does remind me of you." He leaned forward to kiss James chastely on the corner of the mouth. "It reminds me that stars will always be there when darkness falls."
A PARTING OF WAYS
Rating: G
"So... this is it, then?" Those lips are at once tragic and petulant, and at one time, James would have leaned forward and kissed them.
"Yeah," he echoed emptily, and coldly.
Sirius does not look up. James has the distinct impression that the other man is making a conscientous effort not to, because he's never seen anyone look that absorbed in examining their own shoes. Feeling a lump of emotion starting to lodge in his throat, James swallows it and clears his throat.
"Well?" he asks, feeling like he's prodding a caged animal with a stick.
"Well what?" Sirius' eyes still do not stir. The abysmally long lashes form graceful arcs on his high cheekbones. James admires the aesthetic effect for a few seconds before he remembers there are somewhat more important topics to be pondered than the state of Sirius' eyelashes.
"Well... is that all you're going to say?" James wonders if the heat in the hollow of his chest is irritation or something else. Under his rib cage, it feels like there's a porcelain plate shattering. He fancies he can feel the jagged shards.
Sirius' lips purse, and he looks quietly amused. "What else is there to say? There's no point in my telling you anything, but if you want to talk, knock yourself out."
What is there to say? Perhaps Sirius is right, James thinks. But he doesn't want it to be true... doesn't want it like that... he wonders what exactly it is he is trying to do.
"Sirius?" he says, reaching out tentatively with his voice, as if he were expecting to be slapped back like a child stealing cookies from the jar.
The grey of Sirius' eyes isn't visible under the fringe of lashes, and it doesn't feel right. "What?" Sirius asks.
"Are you... could you..." The words wither and die in James' mouth, and leave it feeling dry and thirsty. What he can't say hurts so badly, scraping the inside of his throat like a razor blade. The sensation of glass in his lungs has not dissipated; it rises up in his chest and slashes his voice box and his heart.
Sirius' mouth curls into a wry half-smile, twisted by unshed tears. "Prongs," he says, sounding younger than he ever has before but still older than James, "you can't blame this on me."
At these words, the porcelain in James' chest gives way to fire--the fire of passion, denial, anger, love, and sorrow. They all fight, pounding against his sternum, and his silence still has not broken, because James is afraid of what would come pouring out if it did. Nevertheless, he cannot force them down, and whilst his voice remains resolute, he springs forward and cluthes Sirius to him tightly, stranging and grabbing and possessing, holding the other man's slim frame to his heart as if he were the last piece of home left in the world. And in a way, he is.
"Don't leave me," James' traitorous lips whisper, "please don't leave me."
"You don't want to see me anymore, and I don't need to see you. You've made that perfectly clear already." Obstensibly devoid of emotion, Sirius detaches himself from James' grasp, prying the arms off his waist.
"What are you going to do?"
Sirius smiles sadly. "All I can do is leave"--and he means it, too.
As the image of those ocean-grey eyes and that slender figure skirts across his eyes and out of his vision for the last time, James wonders if he should have said something about the prophecy. No, better not to.