Disclaimer: See chapter 1. Also, the Lyrics to "Destroy Everything You Touch" belong to Ladytron, not me.

A/N: OK, OK, I'm updating damnit! Sorry it took so long, Black-Moon-Goddess, but I do have a broken wrist to heal and lectures to attend. Geez! By the way, this is the last chapter. And there will be slight fluffiness, which goes against my nature but hey. This story was never meant to be so long! Also, I don't know what happened in the last chapter! One minute he was drowning his sorrows, the next he was sleeping with someone he barely knew! Actually, that's happened to me…

Chapter 6: Take It Or Leave It

What you touch
You don't feel,
Do not know
What you steal.

Destroy everything you touch, today,
Destroy me this way.
Anything that may desert you,
So it cannot hurt you.

"You WHAT?" shouted Ben, stepping away from his cauldron and staring incredulously as Sirius sat at the bench with his head in his hands.
"Please, please, please, Ben, shut up!" he mumbled, letting his head fall onto the table. After returning to Hogwarts Sirius couldn't face going to Gryffindor tower, so had showered in the Hufflepuff bathrooms and borrowed some of Ben's clothes, before heading to the dungeons for some Potions revision. His head was throbbing and there were dark circles around his grey-blue eyes. Ben had been sympathetic until Sirius had explained the true reason he had been out all night. Now he was pacing around the empty dungeon, running his fingers distractedly through his red hair.
"I'm sorry, Sirius, but I just don't understand," he said sceptically, "I mean, at what point did shagging Rosmerta seem like a good idea? Actually, scratch that, I don't think I want to know." He sat down at the bench next to Sirius, who was moaning softly into his hands.
"I don't know," said Sirius quietly through his fingers, "she was just so attractive, and I was really, really drunk, and I just wanted to escape from this whole mess." He sighed. "I've totally screwed up, haven't I?" Ben scratched his chin and poured a few drops of bubotuber pus into the cauldron.
"It depends, really," he said thoughtfully, "are you going to keep doing this?" Sirius looked up curiously.
"Doing what?"
"This!" said Ben agitatedly, "Moving from one person to another just to try and escape from the fact that your feelings are trying to tie you down! Hiding in other people's common rooms because you're too ashamed to show your face to your friends! Abusing yourself! Hurting people!" Sirius looked up from the desk, his tired eyes wide and bright, then looked down miserably.
"I can't help it," he said softly and sadly. Ben sighed and put an arm around his friend's lean shoulders.
"Shit, man, I'm sorry," he muttered, "I didn't mean that to come out that way. It's just, you could have things so much better than this. You don't have to hurt people before they hurt you." Sirius looked confused. "Oh don't give me that misunderstood look. Take yesterday. You were so afraid of losing Remus that you had to go and cut him loose before he could hurt you. It took you less than 24 hours to jump into bed with someone else!" Sirius sighed.
"It's just who I am," he murmured, "don't think I don't hate myself right now, because I do, I feel absolutely terrible. And I want to sort things out with Remus, I really do, but it's so hard. I mean, what am I going to tell him?"
There was a silence in which Sirius stared blankly ahead of him, and Ben sat bewildered, never having seen his friend so emotional before. Sirius wasn't emotional like this, he was blasé and aloof, good humoured and fun but at the same time distant and detached. Ben had realised that his friend wasn't lascivious and indifferent, just trying to cope with things in a rather fucked-up way. Ben sighed heavily.
"You just gotta tell him, mate," he mumbled. "Just come clean.
"I know," replied Sirius, "I just hate to think how he'll take it."

It was lunchtime when Sirius managed to gather the courage to leave the potions labs, and wandered into the great Hall in a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt each a size too big for him, his hair swinging forward in an attempt to cover his tired eyes. He spotted Remus at the Gryffindor table, along with James, Lily and Rebecca. He saw Micha sat talking to Ben at another table; as he passed she caught his eye and winked, and he immediately began to panic about who else the rumour had reached. He tried his best to be nonchalant as he sat down with his friends, but his weary face must have given him away. James, who was sat next to him, immediately poked him in the arm with a fork and said,
"Oi, Padfoot, where were you last night?" Sirius helped himself to mashed potato and sausages and said quietly,
"Nowhere, just out." James raised his eyebrows and went back to his food, seeing that his friend was in no mood for conversation. They ate in silence, apart from a few polite remarks about the weather or the day's news headlines. Rebecca finished her meal first, and said to Lily,
"I'll meet you back in the common room, I'm just going to go and see if I can borrow Micha's transfiguration notes from last term." Sirius watched as the blonde girl walked over to the Ravenclaw table, and sat down, while Ben started chatting animatedly. Then Rebecca looked at Sirius across the hall and shouted,
"You're fucking kidding me!"
The whole table turned around, and Sirius finished his food and stood up, making to leave.
"Er, Sirius?" said Remus quietly, standing up from the table, "Could I speak to you for a bit?"
"Sure," muttered Sirius anxiously, and the two of them walked quickly out of the hall together as Lily and James walked towards the Ravenclaw table to hear the gossip.

They sat down on a bench in a deserted hallway, each looking as awkward as the other. Remus looked down at his feet and then swept his fringe away from his face and looked at Sirius, who looked distinctly uncomfortable. He cleared his throat.
"I'm really sorry about yesterday, Padfoot," he said quietly, still looking at Sirius, who was staring intently at a mark on the wooden floor. "I was tired and hungover and I let my worries run away with me. I didn't mean to say that you were capricious, or insincere. I shouldn't have treated you so badly".
"Oh god, Remus, I need to tell you something," said Sirius uneasily, but Remus interjected,
"No, hear me out. I know you've been fickle in the past and that you don't take these things as seriously as I do, but I shouldn't have overreacted. I shouldn't have implied that you can't be serious about people."
"Please, Remus, listen-"
"Will you just shut up for a minute? I was just afraid that you wouldn't understand how I feel about you, that you'd just jump into bed with the next person who came along,"
"Remus-"
"And that I'd just be some guy you kissed at a party. But I've thought about it, Padfoot, and you looked so earnest yesterday. If you don't know how you feel, I can wait until you decide, you know? And it's-"
"For fuck's sake, Moony, SHUT UP!" shouted Sirius, now standing with his brow furrowed and running a hand distractedly though his fringe. "I slept with Rosmerta." Remus frowned slightly, then looked up confusedly.
"So what?" he said. "You also slept with Micha, and Lauren, and Mike, and Dawn, but that's gone by, right? What difference does that make?" Sirius groaned loudly, and put his head in his hands.
"No, Remus," he said softly, "I slept with Rosmerta last night. That's where I was all night." He didn't need to uncover his eyes to hear Remus' footsteps as he walked away in disgust.

Sirius hurried down the corridor after his friend. He had to sort this out, he couldn't keep going on like this. He shouted to Remus to stop and Remus wheeled around, looking wild and tearful.
"What is wrong with you, Sirius?" he shouted, his voice cracking. "Ugh, to think I just apologised to you! I really thought that this time you might just care about someone other than yourself, but clearly I was wrong. What was it, I wasn't going to shag you that night so you had to find someone who would as quickly as possible? I care about you so much that it hurts all the time, but that wasn't enough for you, was it? You just had to go and rip a few more ragged pieces from my heart! Shit, I hate loving you!" He closed his eyes and turned round, and Sirius stood dumbstruck as he walked away. Loving me?

"Remus, please, I'm so, so sorry" shouted Sirius, now struggling to keep up as Remus paced along the corridor. He broke into a run and managed to catch up, grabbing his friend by the arm. Remus didn't look up.
"Let go of me, Sirius," he said quietly.
"Not until you promise you'll hear me out," said Sirius, gripping Remus' arm more tightly.
"Just let go of me."
"Will you listen to me, and not run off again?"
"Let me go, Sirius," said Remus dangerously. Sirius sighed.
"I'm not going to ask you to forgive me, Remus, just to let me say this." He let go of his friend's arm. Remus took a few paces backwards but didn't leave, just stood with his head down, looking at Sirius with bloodshot, stormy grey eyes through strands of sandy, dishevelled hair. Sirius allowed himself a brief piece of hope, and stepped closer to Remus, but Remus again stepped away.
"Fine," he muttered, running a hand through the front of his hair and steeling himself for what had to be said. "Remus, I really, really like you," he started, "and not just as a friend. You're more than that. So much more. And I realised last night that I care for you so much that when I'm with someone else it hurts, because they're not you." Remus was eyeing him sceptically. He continued, "I can't promise I'll feel like this forever. Forever is a long time, Remus, and you know I'm fickle. And who knows what the future's gonna bring?" He had been staring at the floor, but now he looked up, and took in all the watercolour beauty that he had come to love. His eyes were dark and sad. "It gets darker every day," he mumbled, almost to himself. Then he spoke again, suddenly fortified by a new idea. "The thing is, Remus, all we have is what's here, and all we can do is live for the now. And what I can promise is that right here, right now, I have never felt like this about anyone." Sirius sighed deeply and closed his grey-blue eyes, trying to stave off having to hear his friend's reaction. "That's all I can say, Remus," he said quietly. "Take it or leave it."

He opened his eyes. Across the hall, a beam of sunlight was glimmering through the window, between himself and Remus. He looked at his friend, and saw to his astonishment that the beginnings of a small, tender smile were playing across his pale pink lips. Sirius barely had time to smile back before Remus threw his arms around him and Sirius melted into the embrace, burying his head in Remus' soft hair and feeling a tear of joy run down his cheek as he realised that this was what happiness was all about. He smiled and hugged Remus tightly to him, and struggled not to laugh jubilantly as they kissed, bright sunlight shimmering on ebony and gold, and knew that whatever happened, this moment was for keeps.

E N D

A/N: Eeeeeeee! Aw bless, it all works out in the end, despite Sirius being such a slag! Well actually it doesn't, their relationship is eventually torn apart by their own doubts and Sirius, confined to Azkaban, goes twelve long years unable to remember the happiest moment of his life. But they're happy for now, and like Sirius said, the now is all we have. Thanks to all my reviewers, you've kept me going and guilt-tripped me into updating regularly at the expense of my degree. I hope you'll read the next story I post, or maybe even check out my other work or some of my favourite stories via my homepage. Thanks again! Tattva x