My cruel Christmas gift to you guys: The chapter with the most angst so far. It was painful to write this…..Oh well, Happy Holidays! :3 Tis the season to review, you guys, I'd appreciate it so much ;) I hope you're having a great day! (And I hope this chapter doesn't ruin it.)

- REMUS POV -

I can easily blame the Veritaserum for making me blurt out something that I've put exceptional effort into keeping hidden for the past three years. But if I were to be completely honest with myself – something I haven't been in the last few months – I would be facing the fact that, potion or no potion, I still would've told him because I am way too tired to keep up the whole charade. Tired of going out of my way to lie about anything else other than my condition. Tired of pretending to be someone I'm not in front of the first person to ever make me feel accepted. Tired of being so pathetically in love with a person who is intelligent enough to know how to deal with a werewolf, rival Lily's potion-making skills, complete the Animagus transformations and earn great marks in class regardless of his devil-may-care attitude, but not smart enough to observe that his best mate looks at him the way friends shouldn't be looking at each other.

The moment I let those words slip through my lips like the repressed truth they are, the concept of time becomes inconsistent, for it slows down to a pace that even the magical world has deemed impossible. Every second dissolves into the kind of excruciating pace I thought I would only ever experience once a month. And within than span, I begin to register my inner turmoil of panic and fear.

I look at Sirius tentatively, expecting the worst. Expecting repulsion and disgust. But as I peer at him, I see nothing more than what I've seen constantly in the last few months: confusion.

He raises his eyebrows at me, with a blank face. "What is that supposed to mean?"

I feel the anger and frustration rise within me again. What is he playing at? Is he deliberately trying to dodge every unpleasant truth life throws at him? Even when he asks for it?

"What else can it mean?" I snap at him. "I'm in love with you. You are the farthest thing from perfect and stable and safe, which are the very things I need in life. But that never overshadowed the fact that I'm still in love with you."

I can see him beginning to take in the magnitude of my confession. His eyes grow in shock and his hands start to tremble. He opens and closes his mouth multiple times as his gaze drops to the wooden floor.

Before I can let myself regret telling him (even if there wasn't much of a choice anyway), he looks up again, utterly lost and confused. "I..."

"You what?" I prompt, desperate for something – anything – to fill the silence.

He takes a deep breath. "I need a moment. Or two," he answers, sitting down on James' trunk. He rests his elbows on his knees and clutches at his head with both hands. Another deep breath. Then he mutters, "Yeah. Two."

Staying like that, he fixates his eyes on the floor. I'm sure I'm imagining it, but as the minutes tick away, he no longer blinks. Just stares into the space of nothing.

Sighing, I sit on my trunk across from him, holding onto one of my bedposts, just for the sake of doing something. I pick at the peeled paint of the wood, trying to preoccupy myself as Sirius doesn't move a single muscle.

Not being able to handle the rapid beating of my heart – fast enough to threaten my ribcage – anymore, I eye him and say, "Please say something, Sirius." My voice cracks, but I am too nervous to feel ashamed.

He lets go of his grip that messes his hair up and looks me in the eye. "Do you really think I have any idea on what to say, Remus?"

I shake my head. "No. Sorry."

He hangs his head, returning his concentration to the floor. "This can't be right…"

My chest tightens, because that's true. None of this right. What I'm feeling isn't right at all. I take a moment to compose myself before I break into a feeble puddle of apologies and just manage, "No. It isn't. At all."

Then he faces me, with a new air of determination etched on his face as he echoes, "It isn't."

I raise my eyebrows at him and he answers my questioning stare.

"It isn't right," he repeats. "You're lying."

Just when I thought I had reached my limitation of frustration with him, I feel an insurmountable urge of infuriation at his certain expression as my heart takes another merciless blow from his stubborn, blind, and relentlessly thick way of thinking.

I give him a full ten seconds to take it back. To apologize for attempting to take the easy road out of this again. To retract the statement that he's using to return us to our previous state of dismal ignorance. But he doesn't budge and his expression remains resolute.

"You know I can't lie," I say through gritted teeth, both hands clutching at my knees, willing myself to stay as calm as I possibly can.

"Veritaserum has its limits," he states, shrugging. His nonchalance towards this makes punching him right in the face the hardest urge to resist. "It makes you tell the personal truth, not the proven facts."

Glaring at him, I sneer, "What the bloody hell are you saying?"

"I'm saying that you aren't really in love with me. You're wrong."

I scoff, looking up as if the heavens can grant me the patience and composure to keep me from hexing him right then and there. "Excuse me?!"

"You're being a coward."

I shoot up from where I'm sitting. My hands are in clenched fists and my knuckles are turning white as I stare daggers at him. "I'm being a coward?!"

He sighs and stands up, looking right into my fuming eyes. "Yes, Remus, you're scared. And that's why you've let yourself believe that the truth is that you're in love with me. You're scared of someone who's actually like you. You're scared of being in an actual relationship with someone who can return your feelings so you chose me as an excuse for not looking for some bloke who's actually gay. You chose me because you feel like something farfetched is easier to deal with than something that's actually tangible. You want to believe that you're in love with me because you know that someone straight can't get your hopes up."

The millisecond he stops talking, my balled fists strike across his jaw in an instant and his head snaps to the side.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" he yells, his hand flying to cradle his jaw. He curses under his breath, wincing at the pain, and starts to walk back and forth in short strides, as if that will shake off the throbbing sting.

I ignore his profanities, grabbing his arm to halt his pacing and spin him around to face me. I let go, but continue to eye him with every ounce of hurt and fury I can feel streaming through me.

"Did you seriously just invalidate my fucking feelings for you?" I challenge, narrowing my eyebrows.

With his hand still over the afflicted area of his face, he stammers, "Look… I just… What I'm saying is –"

"No, I get it. What you're saying is," I interrupt, my voice rising, "that you reckon you can dictate my fucking emotions. You reckon I'm just that weak friend who asks 'how high?' when you yell for me to jump. Well, that's not how things work and no matter how bloody inconvenient this is for you, you're going to have to deal with that. "

He runs a trembling hand through his hair, and the hand cradling his injured jaw reaches for me in an attempt to steady me from my rage. "Remus, will you fucking listen…"

I swat his hand away – he flinches as I do so – and continue. "No, you listen. You're wrong; you can't invalidate my feelings even if you actually tried harder than that sorry excuse for an attempt! I am so inescapably in love with you and you think you have fucking control over that?! You used to, Sirius, but now it's too late. I'm in too deep. If the past couple years have taught me anything, it's the fact that you can literally do anything to me and to everyone around me, and I would still love you like you put the stars in the bloody sky!

I know you're a big-headed git, but you have to understand that even the marvelous Sirius Black can't change that. You can't change the way I feel about you. Especially now when it's my emotions in the first place that got us into this bloody fucking mess! You have to get it through your thick head that this isn't like in fourth year when you made me believe that I was more proud than pissed off when you got me into a month's worth of detention for some stupid prank or when you convinced me that the only reason I was mad at you for ruining my only copy of Catcher In The Rye was because the fucking full moon was close. This is real.

And I'm sorry if you think you have the power to nullify something I've been living with – something I've been hiding – for three years. I'm sorry but you're just going to deal with the fact that there's another thing about me that even you can't fix."

He looks at me incredulously, a glare sparking in his silver eyes. "How are you so sure about this?"

"You're unbelievable," I mumble, shaking my head.

"You can't expect me to just accept all this! This is… Come on, Moony –"

"Don't call me that," I snap.

A look of anguish flashes across his face, but he recovers with a defiant stare. "I'm sorry, but I can't just take this. This is just some fucking alibi, Remus, and you know it."

"You really think that?" I try to say with a composed stance.

He gives a fraction of a nod. But a fraction is all it takes before I take out my wand from my pocket. His hand flinches for his pocket, but I say, "Calm the fuck down. I'm not going to hex you – as tempting as that sounds."

His hand drops to his side and with an angry, insolent look still glued onto his face, he watches me flick my wand and mutter, "Accio box."

The wooden box I keep underneath my four-poster swiftly flies out and settles itself between us on the floor with a soft thud.

His steadfast expression morphs into one of bewilderment. He raises his eyebrows. "What's this?"

"The password's Canicula," I simply say. "Tap it with your wand."

"Canicula means Sirius," he says slowly.

"Really? I hadn't noticed," I say sarcastically, rolling my eyes. "Open the damn box."

He looks at me with puzzlement before retrieving his wand from his robes and crouching down. Picking up the box gingerly, he sits back down on James' trunk. He casts another quick glance at me before focusing on the box – now resting on his lap – once more.

Following my instructions, he taps at it and mutters, "Canicula."

He looks even more confused when it unlocks and he gently lifts the lid. As if the insides of the box were made of hypnotising properties, his eyes glaze over. But eventually, he just breaks his trance and looks up at me.

"What is this, Remus?"

"Something I wouldn't have if I wasn't in love with you," I answer simply. Taking a tentative step towards him, I pick something up from the box. I turn it over in my hand, then as soon as I see what it is, hold it up. "This is the shoelace from my sneakers that Padfoot chewed up the night you first successfully transformed to keep me company."

He looks at it, his face contorted into confusion and more denial. So I let the worn out shoelace drop to the floor, and let my fingers enclose around something else in the box. I show it to him.

"And this… This is the page you ripped out from the library book about Animagi. You showed it to me because it highlighted the transformations' benefits and back then, I wouldn't let you guys go through it."

He nods slowly, taking the torn paper from my hands. "Yeah… I… I remember that."

I chuckle bitterly at his nonchalance and just like that, I fall into a pattern, plunging my hand into the box for more of its contents and showing him each of the items I can grab.

A bunch of scrolls.

"See these? These are all the apology letters you wrote me from last year…"

A pair of socks.

"The socks you let me borrow during one of the full moons because I forgot mine."

Scraps of paper.

"All the notes you passed me in class that I replied to even if you were distracting me."

A few papers paper clipped together.

"News clippings you cut out for me whenever there was any progress with Damocles' experimentation on the Wolfsbane potion… It's pathetic how I kept these not for the information but because of the fact that you're so invested in making sure I had it."

Wrappers.

"Every single wrapper from all the chocolate you've given me. Yes, including the apology ones I pretended to ignore after The Prank last year," I add, sensing the tinge of curiosity in his eyes.

The torn photograph.

Trying to find words for this one is impossible. I even hesitate before handing it to him. He clutches it tight, his mouth opened slightly in a stunned expression. "I didn't know you still had this."

"Well, yeah, I do…" I mutter, rubbing the back of my neck. "If you still aren't convinced that –"

"Yeah, I get it!" he snaps, closing the box after putting the picture back. "Just… just stop."

I raise my eyebrows at him. "Stop what?"

"This!" he exclaims, shoving the box back to me.

I yank it from his grasp and toss it back to my bed, causing some of its contents to spill. "Why are you so scared of the truth?! After asking for it, no less!"

He shuts his eyes tight, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand. "This is so stupid," he mutters as he opens his eyes again, revealing silver orbs of utter confusion.

"What's stupid?" I ask, crossing my arms. I can't help but notice that my voice is rising with every word, and that my actions are growing more and more aggressive. Both are vain attempts to try to ignore the gnawing feeling in my heart. Like a knot that's keeping me together, threatening to unravel. But I can't let whatever is keeping me intact fail now. I refuse to feel the magnitude of my heart shattering. Not in front of him, at least.

I have to keep numbing it. For now.

"The fact that you let yourself fall for me!" he yells, throwing his hands up in frustration. "You're smarter than that, Remus. Why would you even… I mean… There's no chance for this to end well!"

"Don't you think I know that?! Don't you think I've beaten myself up for it enough?!" I retort. My hands are starting to shake with repressed emotion and I don't know whether I'm holding myself back from pummeling him again or – worse – crying.

"Well, you know you say that it's because of what I did, but none of that was wrong," he says sternly, his silver eyes gleaming with indignation. "I was just being a good friend that morning, Remus! I didn't have a single intention of making you feel… like this."

I cross my arms, and counter, "And what, you think I had the intention of feeling like this?! None of this was a choice, Sirius! And you can make it sound like my feelings for you are the cause of all this mess, but it has never sparked trouble for the past three years until you kissed me!"

His mouth moves, forming words that aren't audible. He's speechless, probably caught off guard by the one fact in this whole situation that we have neglected to confront. The fact that he kissed me first.

Finally, he speaks, with a defensive tone. "I was drunk, Remus. You can't expect me to make reasonable decisions while I'm drunk."

Shrugging noncommittally, I tell him, "The same way you can't expect me to make reasonable decisions when I'm in love with you."

He winces. "Stop saying that!"

I feel another stab in my chest, but I hide it. "What? That I'm in love with you?"

He glares at me. "Will you fucking stop it?! It's wrong! It's all so… wrong."

Stab.

"You know, Sirius, I can stop saying it anytime I want, but you can't just fucking ignore it! Haven't the past few months been enough proof that ignoring everything will just make things worse for us? Look, I am not asking anything from you other than to just deal with the truth."

He shakes his head. "That's already asking too much."

"And you call me the coward?" I ask, my voice dripping with a cruel tone that I hope disguises the total agony pulsing throughout my body.

"I don't know what to do with this, okay?!" he snaps. "What would you do if you were in my place? Look, you say that you're not asking much, but you are. You're my best mate, Remus. Or at least, you were. And now I'm losing you because of this. How am I supposed to be around you now?! I'm going to feel like I'm tiptoeing around a ticking time bomb! Like I'm narrowly avoiding traps! Because I'm never going to know what I'm causing you to feel. I'm never going to learn how to deal with this, so I'm not going to apologise for not wanting to just deal with the fucking truth, okay?!"

"Is that what I am to you now? A trap? A ticking time bomb? Is that how revolted you are by me now?!" I shout, stepping closer towards him. Merely inches separate us now, but with the hostile glare in his eyes bearing down on me, it feels like you could put galaxies between us and there would still be more space.

"That's not what I meant," he says through gritted teeth. "I'm just saying that I don't think I'm ever going to learn to adjust to… this version you."

"This version of me?" I repeat, trying to keep my composure. "First of all, I'm still me, Sirius! It's not like I'm going to start hitting on you every damn chance I get, you asshole. And second, why can't you at least try?! I thought I meant at least enough for you to actually make things work for our friendship."

"This is just way too… different. And wrong. What you feel is wrong."

I scoff, but this time tears are really threatening to show. "This is coming from the boy who ran away because he comes from a home that tried to make him believe that people who were different were to be ashamed of? That only the best sense of the norm was to be accepted. But now, here you are, scared just because I make you uncomfortable? And you won't even attempt to warm up to it?! Merlin, Sirius, I already know that there is no chance of you ever loving me back, all I'm asking is for you to stop being the coward who's acting like a little boy who's scared of change in his perfect fucking life. Stop acting like a boy who belongs to that family you left behind!"

The protest in his eyes is quickly replaced with hurt and betrayal, as my hand flies to my mouth and I immediately regret saying what I just said.

"Sirius," I say carefully, "I didn't mean –"

"You know what, Remus?" he suddenly interrupts. "You're wrong. I am not like my family, I am not a coward, and I do not have a perfect life," he says calmly.

I open my mouth to apologize, but he continues, with a violent tone taking over his previous composed one.

"But you're right about one thing. There is no chance of me ever loving you back."

I can no longer will my tears from falling, because the moment the words fall from his mouth, my heart drops to my stomach, collapsing into a million pieces. My fingers tremble and my knees go weak, making it hard to I step away from him. A knot forms in my throat, closing in on whatever words were still willing to come out.

Tear tracks soon appear down my cheeks. I turn from Sirius to wipe them away quickly, as if he didn't already see the tears spill. It is hard to determine which emotion is bigger. Looking back at him, my heart feels another tug to see a new, more thoughtless sense of cruelty dawning on his face. His jaw is tense and his eyes have a frighteningly unwavering tinge of numbness to them. I brace myself.

He shakes his head. "Now who needs to learn how to handle the truth?" His voice is not hateful or mocking, but empty. The kind of empty that is sincere. The kind of empty that lets me know that he has a point.

"I get it, Sirius…" I want to say more, but my voice cracks.

"No, you don't. You're pushing me to face things I'm not ready for. And you can't even deal with hearing the fact that you claim you've accepted. The reason why I can't just… be okay with who you are."

"I'm not asking you to love me back," I say pathetically.

"I know," he says, looking down at the floor. "But you're asking me to be okay with this. And I'm not. And I think that it will be better if we spend some time apart."

Silence takes over the room like a raincloud promising another storm until he breaks it with his footsteps as he makes his way towards the door.

"Wait," I call out, just as he opens the door and takes a step outside.

He turns to me. "What?"

"You know what's rubbish?" I say with a challenging tone. "The fact that you welcomed me with open arms when you found out I was a werewolf, but now you're treating me like a poison just because… of my feelings for you."

He sighs. "Being a werewolf never made you crazy, Remus. It never made you desperate and barking mad. But these feelings for me have turned your mind into mush. It's made you more vulnerable. It's made you reckless and thoughtless. You isolated yourself. Then you told me to stay away from you. Then you get angry at me for not knowing how to cope with everything, even saying that I am like my family – the ruthless family that has tortured me to endless extents my whole life. Don't even say that you didn't mean it, because Veritaserum lasts way longer than that. You meant it at the time. That was the truth you believed just because I couldn't handle something to the point of me pushing you away – and to think that you did the same thing to me that day at the Infirmary when I asked you not to give up on us.

Well, this is me taking up your offer. I give up on us. Because your feelings for me are dangerous and unsafe. Because I don't want to hurt you like this every day. And frankly, because you being… being in love with me…Well, it's making you more of a monster than your condition ever did."

He walks out, slamming the door behind him.

Preview for next chapter: "What is wrong with you? She's not just some girl I'm messing with. We've been together for over four months, if you haven't noticed."