Title: Their Sad Eyes
By: Amanda
Feedback: sweety167yahoo.ca
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I'm just playing with JK Rowling's toys.
Spoilers: Post OtoP
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Summary: They all just keep staring at him with their sad eyes.
Completed: January 27, 2005
Notes: To the lovely, amazing Goddess of fanfiction IrishLily, who not only BETA-ed my first HP piece here, she also Reced the first Remus/Sirius fic I ever read, which got this ball rolling. Luvs!
They're all watching me with their sad eyes. Their careful, sad eyes. Their sad stares that slowly drive me mad. The same type of eyes that first watched me when I was five – sad, careful and worried. As if no one dared take their eyes off me, in fear of what I might do or what other tragedy might befall me.
But what other curses could possibly hurt me now?
I've already been cursed twice. Once a month my bones break and my skin rips, but it always mends in the morning. That one I've learned to deal with, to live with. But the other is a far more deadly and painful curse – the curse of loving one Sirius Black. It's a curse marked with many more breaks and rips, and far too many losses. Never is it limited to once a month —I could only be so lucky. It's a constant curse, and it doesn't come with a mending guarantee. In fact, I don't think it will ever mend. I can't see how my heart ever could.
And so they all watch me with their sad, sympathetic eyes. Every time I move they're watching me, waiting for me to want or need their sad gazes and sympathetic words – words worse than the sad, careful, sympathetic eyes themselves. Their carefully uttered words!
"You know they say it's better to have loved and lost him than never to have loved him at all," Molly's sympathetic, rehearsed words and a careful, comforting pat on the shoulder. Must make sure it's not too much, nor too little.
Was it to fill the silence we all sit in now? Who did she think she was helping? Giving us all a helpful little push into moving on? Making it all seem better? To have loved and lost, ha! A joke played to make the curse hurt less.
But tell me Molly, if Arthur hadn't made it back from the Ministry, would it have been better to have loved and lost? What would you feel under the scrutiny of their sad and sympathetic eyes as they carefully watched you breathe? Would there be comfort in it all? Would that overused, and underestimated, cliché bring you comfort? Take comfort in the lifetime you've shared with him, Molly. The mornings you wake up together, the dinners you've eaten together, the silences you've shared together, the fighting and the making up, the laughing and crying – and all you will continue to share until you are both old and grey, Merlin willing.
I've lost him twice Molly. Twice! Do you have any idea? Do any of you, behind your sad eyes and careful silences? Do you dare say you know what it's like to never be able to see him again? To never share anything ever again?
Oh, if I had known that then, I never would have… I never would have fallen in love with that shaggy hair and wicked smile; I never would have kissed those dry and - yet still - soft lips. I never would have woken up wrapped in his arms and I certainly never would have wanted to die when he fell into that veil.
And, I wouldn't have to be stared at by those sad eyes.
No one would be sympathetic and careful with me. No one would watch me and wait…
But then, I'd never know what he tasted like: the sweet-salty Sirius taste. I'd never know how he slept with his mouth open, or how he'd curl up against my back, letting out a possessive growl into the curve of my neck. That deep, even pattern of his breathing. His disgusting habit of cleaning his fingernails with his teeth. How he preferred his toast a shade shy of burnt. That he'd secretly cry at 'chick-flick' Muggle movies. That one of his favourite things was sleeping until noon after staying up 'til two just talking, just talking. How his feet were always cold. How he'd give a yelp that faded into a moan when I nibbled the spot right next to his hip…
No. I'd never trade all that – nor the million other things– to be rid of their sad eyes now.
While I know that wolf never gave me a second thought, I can still take all their sad, sympathetic looks knowing that Sirius did, always did. With all that's come of that second curse, realising too late and loosing him twice, the only thing that's made it all worth while is that Sirius loved me through it, beyond it. That alone can give me the strength to survive all this and more. Even their sad eyes.
end.