A/N: It breaks my heart to write these drabbles, and yet I enjoy writing them so very much. I'm clearly a psycho. Please R&R!
4. shine
Now every time I hear the word love I think going...going...
The first week you were gone
I kept seeing your hand wave goodbye,
like a windshield wiper in a flooding car
in the last real moment I believed the hurricane would let me out alive...
Sometimes, when he first wakes, Sirius forgets. It is in the early hours of the morning, or perhaps the late hours of the day, for time is not important when you are just waiting, waiting, waiting.
Waiting for nothing.
(Waiting for death.)
He stirs. The air is cold. He can hear the waves crashing outside, the rain battering down on the roof, the wind whistling through the cracks in old stone. He can see, but only barely. He is confused.
He forgets what has happened, if only very, very briefly.
He sees a glint through half-opened, bleary eyes and he thinks perhaps it is the shine from Remus' watch as he turns a page, or the glint of James' glasses in the sunlight.
It is neither.
It is a rusty, old door opening somewhere in the distance, a sliver of light escaping and then dying off with a slam. That slam is what brings Sirius back to right now, where he realises that there is no Prongs, no Moony, and there are no Marauders and he is alone.
He doesn't move for the longest time after that flash of light, so like a glimmer of false hope in the distance.
Instead, he stares straight ahead and thinks what he would do if Remus was in front of him, turning the page of his Charms Quarterlyand sipping coffee from Sirius' favourite mug. He thinks he'd sing. He thinks he'd dance about and scream and shout and hug Remus so, so tight. He would take him by the hand and run all the way to Prongs' house and he would pick up baby Harry and tell him a tale of a terrible future that isn't really true.
The door reopens, the shine so bright it blinds Sirius for just a moment.
But it is enough.
The light bounces off the walls, lighting up mossy stonework and cracked tiles and Sirius remembers. All illusions are shattered. He cannot even pretend anymore, not right now.
He hugs his arms tighter around himself and closes his eyes.
Maybe, if he gets back to sleep, he can forget once more.