[fic] Mislaid
Title: Mislaid
Author: noscrubs12345
Rating: R
Word Count: ~2560
Summary: And what you thought you lost was just mislaid....
Warnings: Angst, infidelity, character death, sexual situations.
Prompt: Libra (Sept. 23 -- Oct. 23): You may be waiting for something or someone. And the whole process has left you frustrated and anxious. But if you get a quarter of what you're hoping for, you'll be happy. And you will, soon get at least that. (Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Team Post Hogwarts)
Disclaimer:This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. All characters involved in sexual situations are of age.
Notes: Written for round two of the rs_games. Title/summary from Goldfrapp's Some People.
Originally posted here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The waiting is the worst part--the uncertainty of not knowing and the doubts that cross your mind and lie beside you in the dark while he's not.
Sometimes you try to sleep, but the bed is too big and too empty without his body curled next to yours. The war may be changing the man you love, but that doesn't mean the comfort he offers isn't welcomed when the secrets and half-truths become too much for you think about any more.
The steady beat of his heart under your ear and the hand in your hair are subtle reassurances that maybe he isn't who you fear he is becoming.
***
"When will you be back?" you ask as innocently as you can manage and look up from your book.
His grey eyes burn as he stares straight through you. "I don't know."
He doesn't say anything more, just disappears into the Floo without so much as a look backwards. Your heart breaks a little more each time he leaves without a reason to do Merlin knows what.
Sometimes you think a bad excuse would be preferable.
You know you should talk to him, tell him how much he's hurting you.
But it would mean asking questions you don't want the answers too. Instead you go back to your book, the pages blurred by the tears you refuse to cry.
***
You watch him as he stands at the window, rain trickling down the dingy glass in torrents from a sky black as his name.
His forehead is pressed against it, arms crossed, and he sighs. You'd give anything to know what he's thinking, what's going on inside his head, what he's planning, but all you do is wrap your arms around him from behind and hold him close.
He tenses before relaxing into what little solace your embrace still offers.
You kiss his neck and he covers your hands with his own, letting himself forget the topsy-turvy world in the streets below for a little while.
***
There's still something resembling love in the way he touches you in the aftermath of yet another battle, in the way he moans as you move over and above him.
His hands are on your hips, thumbs tracing rough circles on bones that stick too much as you ride him. His cheeks are flushed, eyes squeezed shut as he swears and thrashes beneath you and his lips slick with your mixed saliva.
His hands are in your hair, on your shoulders, your, back, your cock, trying to get closer than close, wanting more than skin on skin. You just kiss his hard, pulling away as you shift to take him deeper, needing to forget the faces of comrades who fell, too young, in the just another of the seemingly endless, all too common bloodbaths around you.
He comes first, a warm rush inside you, muttering "I fucking love you" in a breathy and broken mantra that sends you over the edge.
A part of you wants to say it back--needs you to say it to prove to yourself it's still true--but all you can do is kiss his collarbone as you pull away, too tired to do anything more than wait for sleep to silence your troubled thoughts.
***
"You're late."
His voice is rough with sleep and the door hits you as you enter the flat. You look around for him as you shrug out of you cloak, praying that the blood staining it will come out in the wash.
He's sitting at the kitchen table when you find him, hair mussed and an angry red mark on his face from pillowing it against his fist.
"I know," you say, wincing as the words come out angrily. You sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose. "I'm sorry I didn't Floo."
He snorts and there's hurt in his eyes as he looks up at you. His voice is soft when he asks, "Where were you?"
"Out!" you shout and regret it immediately. It's childish even to your own ears and you wince, not in the mood for a row when sinking into bed would be bliss.
You know it's the wrong thing to have said, but you won't apologise. Not yet.
You want to, though. Want to tell him you were doing for Dumbledore what he can't so himself, but what proof do you have that he's the man you want to believe he once was? That the Death Eaters won't show up the next time you're trying to rally werewolves in Gloucestershire that Voldemort's promises of equality and freedom are fickle falsities.
You watch, helplessly angry with yourself, as he stands and brushes past you. His fury is radiating from him like heat from a forge as he storms past you, and you sink to the floor when the bedroom door slams shut behind him.
The tears boil over when you realise you want to hold him, tell him it's not his fault you're cross, have him tell you it will be good as gold in when this war is over and done with. You'll won't find sleep tonight despite your exhaustion and try to keep the wolf at bay as the moon slowly creeps closer to full.
***
You say you're sorry when he finds you still crouched in the kitchen in the morning light
You tell him you love him and how much you hate this godforsaken flat in godforsaken London.
He just holds you close and lets you cry again, whispering words you feel more than hear against your neck and you cling to him like a dying man to life. Whispered apologies of his own litter your skin, lips searing as they touch.
You still need him more that you want to admit and you sob against his shoulder because that terrifies you more than the death and evil that haunts the Wizarding World.
He holds you until you calm, cradling you in his lap like a child and presses kisses to you neck and cheek. You love this man more than anything, but you can't fight the fear and uncertainty that consumes you.
You could be held in a traitor's arms, too close to the enemy for comfort, but you can't bring yourself to care. Not when he tells you everything is all right, that it's not that bad, and that he's being a pain in the arse..
And you don't know if it's worse to believe him or to think it's just Imperio.
***
The silence hurts more than anything.
He comes in late to find you in your chair, a book open in your lap to the same page you started on three hours before. You don't say anything as he collapses into a boneless heap on the sofa, a weary sigh on his lips as he settles without a word.
You watch him out of the corner of your eye, knowing he's doing the same as he pretends to stare up at one of the numerous cracks in the ceiling.
The occasional car in the street below and the too loud ticking of the broken-faced clock slowly counting away the minutes are the only sounds in the flat as the pair of you do nothing but sit not saying a word. You want to ask him how his day was, ask if he wants pizza or Chinese from the shop around the corner for dinner, ask if he wants to go to bed to do more than just avoid touching and pretending to sleep for a change.
But you don't utter a word.
You let the silence speak for you and hope it's loud enough to smother the sound of two hearts breaking in the gloom.
***
Moony knows something isn't right. You can feel it in the days before the full moon as you try to stave off the wolf's instincts. But somehow you can't blame him for worrying about what he doesn't understand.
You pass it off as animal instinct when the wolf is more aggressive and Padfoot whimpers and cries when playful nips become reprimands for what you fear the dog's human self is hiding.
There are more bites and bruises when the two of you wake in the hours after moonset. You mutter feverish apologies as he conjures a hot basin of water and a flannel to clean the scratches over your stomach and back, his own cuts forgotten for now. He just smiles sadly and makes half-hearted jokes, telling you that scars can be covered by tattoos.
You're too tired to laugh and you're sure it would hurt if you tired, so you concentrate instead on his hands as he cleans your wounds more gently than they have any right to be. They still over your heart, lingering longer than necessary to feel the slow beat of the muscle hidden beneath layers of all too fragile skin and brittle bones.
Your breath hitches and he leans down to kiss you, his hands not moving as you forget the wolf's despair and your own misery to the feeling of a warm, familiar body against your own.
He pulls away to kiss the tip of your nose, a smile on both your faces at the seeming silliness gesture and the raw sorrow in his eyes as he rinses the flannel in water tinted red is the last thing you see before exhausted sleep takes you.
***
You can't remember the last time you made love instead of just fucking or being fucked.
It's little more than just an excuse for release. It used to be beautiful. You used to feel wanted. Now it's just another act to get through as you try to forget he may not bewho he used to be.
You move inside of him, following him into an unsatisfied but sated euphoria as he tightens around you as he comes.
There used to be happy, blissful moments when you'd smile and hold him in the afterglow, talking about the future and of running away to any place where no one's heard of Voldemort to get you through the darkness and into a blooming dawn.
Now, all you can do is not meet his eyes and roll away from him. You're careful not to touch and stay on your side of the bed, staring out at the clouded London skies as he faces the door.
Merlin knows you want nothing more to press your back to his, to fall asleep with warm skin pressed to warm skin. But you can do little more than pretend you aren't slowly falling apart as the love you try to deny battles the guilt and paranoia that have become as much a part of you--both of you--as your world continues to spiral out of control.
***
When he comes home smelling like woman--a nauseating rush of cheap, fruity perfume not quite masked by the stink of cigarettes and alcohol--is when you decide that maybe you should re-evaluate what you're both doing sharing a flat like a ‘normal' couple.
You've never been exclusive and you've both had other partners, but you felt secure in knowing he'd always ask before bedding some tart he'd met at a pub.
A selfish part of you hoped you'd be the only one he wanted. Or at least the one he came home to.
You know you've been pushing him away, constantly wondering if he's simply overshadowed by dark magic or if the proverbial apple hasn't fallen far from the tree. And the tension that rolls off him nowadays and all the time spent away from you with no alibi makes you wonder what you did or didn't do.
The memory of the scent lingers long after he's showered and sleeping fitfully in the bedroom, burning your nostrils in the cold night air as you walk the streets to try to clear your head.
The moon is slowly waning, but the wolf is angry. He's ready for a fight or a fuck--whichever comes first doesn't matter--and for once you're more than happy to let him have it when you step into a bar whose neon lights, blaring disco and raging levels of testosterone are enough to choke you.
Tomorrow you'll feel guilty for fucking a blond whose name you'll never know in the loo.
Tonight you don't care.
You'll be moved out of the flat come the weekend.
You can't take this pain any more.
Your heart can't possibly break even more than it already is.
There's no one to blame but yourself for still loving Sirius with all that you have.
It'll be easier to set him free, knowing he can find someone better than you.
But you know won't love again.
Little do you know that neither will he.
***
The day you pack your suitcase is a Thursday.
There's no rain, no clouds, no tears pouring down your face like you expected. Instead, you feel hollow and gapingly empty inside. You've been trying to tell yourself to just go, that you shouldn't be waiting around until you can gather up the nerve to open the door and step across the threshold.
It's just a simple motion of putting one foot in front of the other--the first step towards a new part of your life--but it's the most difficult one you'll ever take.
When you finally decide to take it and open the door, you hear the tell-tale ‘pop' of Apparation only to find yourself with an armful of a distraught Sirius. His weight sends you stumbling back into the front room and you can feel the sobs as they wrack his body, hot tears soaking through your shirt.
You slide to the floor, asking questions you don't think he's hearing and trying not to let panic take you.
"Who, Sirius?" you say for a third time, pulling back to look him in the eye.
He just clings harder to you and you know you'll have bruises tomorrow.
"Sirius?" you try again and take his chin in your hand, forcing him to meet your gaze. "What's happened?"
His eyes are shining with tears, all the clouds you thought absent from the sky outside in them, and the pitiful noises he's making sound too much like Padfoot's whimpers.
"Regulus." The word comes out as a sob and fresh tears cascade down the plains of his face. "He's dead."
"How?" you ask and wrap him in your arms. You tuck his head under your chin with a kiss and he holds you even tighter.
"Voldemort. Killed him himself," Sirius says and his voice breaks. "Little bastard. I should have protected him. Should have been a better brother. Always was shit at it. Never told him that I loved him. Never thought I'd miss him.
"Love you, Moony. Love you so much," he mutters and you feel tears of your own burn your eyes. "Don't tell you enough. Love you. Always have. Always going to."
You hold him as he cries and if he knows you're crying too he doesn't show it. Leaving can wait for another day, another time when your world has turned from black to grey. He still needs you as much as you need him, even if you don't want to admit it anymore.
"I love you too."
Author: noscrubs12345
Rating: R
Word Count: ~2560
Summary: And what you thought you lost was just mislaid....
Warnings: Angst, infidelity, character death, sexual situations.
Prompt: Libra (Sept. 23 -- Oct. 23): You may be waiting for something or someone. And the whole process has left you frustrated and anxious. But if you get a quarter of what you're hoping for, you'll be happy. And you will, soon get at least that. (Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Team Post Hogwarts)
Disclaimer:This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. All characters involved in sexual situations are of age.
Notes: Written for round two of the rs_games. Title/summary from Goldfrapp's Some People.
Originally posted here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The waiting is the worst part--the uncertainty of not knowing and the doubts that cross your mind and lie beside you in the dark while he's not.
Sometimes you try to sleep, but the bed is too big and too empty without his body curled next to yours. The war may be changing the man you love, but that doesn't mean the comfort he offers isn't welcomed when the secrets and half-truths become too much for you think about any more.
The steady beat of his heart under your ear and the hand in your hair are subtle reassurances that maybe he isn't who you fear he is becoming.
***
"When will you be back?" you ask as innocently as you can manage and look up from your book.
His grey eyes burn as he stares straight through you. "I don't know."
He doesn't say anything more, just disappears into the Floo without so much as a look backwards. Your heart breaks a little more each time he leaves without a reason to do Merlin knows what.
Sometimes you think a bad excuse would be preferable.
You know you should talk to him, tell him how much he's hurting you.
But it would mean asking questions you don't want the answers too. Instead you go back to your book, the pages blurred by the tears you refuse to cry.
***
You watch him as he stands at the window, rain trickling down the dingy glass in torrents from a sky black as his name.
His forehead is pressed against it, arms crossed, and he sighs. You'd give anything to know what he's thinking, what's going on inside his head, what he's planning, but all you do is wrap your arms around him from behind and hold him close.
He tenses before relaxing into what little solace your embrace still offers.
You kiss his neck and he covers your hands with his own, letting himself forget the topsy-turvy world in the streets below for a little while.
***
There's still something resembling love in the way he touches you in the aftermath of yet another battle, in the way he moans as you move over and above him.
His hands are on your hips, thumbs tracing rough circles on bones that stick too much as you ride him. His cheeks are flushed, eyes squeezed shut as he swears and thrashes beneath you and his lips slick with your mixed saliva.
His hands are in your hair, on your shoulders, your, back, your cock, trying to get closer than close, wanting more than skin on skin. You just kiss his hard, pulling away as you shift to take him deeper, needing to forget the faces of comrades who fell, too young, in the just another of the seemingly endless, all too common bloodbaths around you.
He comes first, a warm rush inside you, muttering "I fucking love you" in a breathy and broken mantra that sends you over the edge.
A part of you wants to say it back--needs you to say it to prove to yourself it's still true--but all you can do is kiss his collarbone as you pull away, too tired to do anything more than wait for sleep to silence your troubled thoughts.
***
"You're late."
His voice is rough with sleep and the door hits you as you enter the flat. You look around for him as you shrug out of you cloak, praying that the blood staining it will come out in the wash.
He's sitting at the kitchen table when you find him, hair mussed and an angry red mark on his face from pillowing it against his fist.
"I know," you say, wincing as the words come out angrily. You sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose. "I'm sorry I didn't Floo."
He snorts and there's hurt in his eyes as he looks up at you. His voice is soft when he asks, "Where were you?"
"Out!" you shout and regret it immediately. It's childish even to your own ears and you wince, not in the mood for a row when sinking into bed would be bliss.
You know it's the wrong thing to have said, but you won't apologise. Not yet.
You want to, though. Want to tell him you were doing for Dumbledore what he can't so himself, but what proof do you have that he's the man you want to believe he once was? That the Death Eaters won't show up the next time you're trying to rally werewolves in Gloucestershire that Voldemort's promises of equality and freedom are fickle falsities.
You watch, helplessly angry with yourself, as he stands and brushes past you. His fury is radiating from him like heat from a forge as he storms past you, and you sink to the floor when the bedroom door slams shut behind him.
The tears boil over when you realise you want to hold him, tell him it's not his fault you're cross, have him tell you it will be good as gold in when this war is over and done with. You'll won't find sleep tonight despite your exhaustion and try to keep the wolf at bay as the moon slowly creeps closer to full.
***
You say you're sorry when he finds you still crouched in the kitchen in the morning light
You tell him you love him and how much you hate this godforsaken flat in godforsaken London.
He just holds you close and lets you cry again, whispering words you feel more than hear against your neck and you cling to him like a dying man to life. Whispered apologies of his own litter your skin, lips searing as they touch.
You still need him more that you want to admit and you sob against his shoulder because that terrifies you more than the death and evil that haunts the Wizarding World.
He holds you until you calm, cradling you in his lap like a child and presses kisses to you neck and cheek. You love this man more than anything, but you can't fight the fear and uncertainty that consumes you.
You could be held in a traitor's arms, too close to the enemy for comfort, but you can't bring yourself to care. Not when he tells you everything is all right, that it's not that bad, and that he's being a pain in the arse..
And you don't know if it's worse to believe him or to think it's just Imperio.
***
The silence hurts more than anything.
He comes in late to find you in your chair, a book open in your lap to the same page you started on three hours before. You don't say anything as he collapses into a boneless heap on the sofa, a weary sigh on his lips as he settles without a word.
You watch him out of the corner of your eye, knowing he's doing the same as he pretends to stare up at one of the numerous cracks in the ceiling.
The occasional car in the street below and the too loud ticking of the broken-faced clock slowly counting away the minutes are the only sounds in the flat as the pair of you do nothing but sit not saying a word. You want to ask him how his day was, ask if he wants pizza or Chinese from the shop around the corner for dinner, ask if he wants to go to bed to do more than just avoid touching and pretending to sleep for a change.
But you don't utter a word.
You let the silence speak for you and hope it's loud enough to smother the sound of two hearts breaking in the gloom.
***
Moony knows something isn't right. You can feel it in the days before the full moon as you try to stave off the wolf's instincts. But somehow you can't blame him for worrying about what he doesn't understand.
You pass it off as animal instinct when the wolf is more aggressive and Padfoot whimpers and cries when playful nips become reprimands for what you fear the dog's human self is hiding.
There are more bites and bruises when the two of you wake in the hours after moonset. You mutter feverish apologies as he conjures a hot basin of water and a flannel to clean the scratches over your stomach and back, his own cuts forgotten for now. He just smiles sadly and makes half-hearted jokes, telling you that scars can be covered by tattoos.
You're too tired to laugh and you're sure it would hurt if you tired, so you concentrate instead on his hands as he cleans your wounds more gently than they have any right to be. They still over your heart, lingering longer than necessary to feel the slow beat of the muscle hidden beneath layers of all too fragile skin and brittle bones.
Your breath hitches and he leans down to kiss you, his hands not moving as you forget the wolf's despair and your own misery to the feeling of a warm, familiar body against your own.
He pulls away to kiss the tip of your nose, a smile on both your faces at the seeming silliness gesture and the raw sorrow in his eyes as he rinses the flannel in water tinted red is the last thing you see before exhausted sleep takes you.
***
You can't remember the last time you made love instead of just fucking or being fucked.
It's little more than just an excuse for release. It used to be beautiful. You used to feel wanted. Now it's just another act to get through as you try to forget he may not bewho he used to be.
You move inside of him, following him into an unsatisfied but sated euphoria as he tightens around you as he comes.
There used to be happy, blissful moments when you'd smile and hold him in the afterglow, talking about the future and of running away to any place where no one's heard of Voldemort to get you through the darkness and into a blooming dawn.
Now, all you can do is not meet his eyes and roll away from him. You're careful not to touch and stay on your side of the bed, staring out at the clouded London skies as he faces the door.
Merlin knows you want nothing more to press your back to his, to fall asleep with warm skin pressed to warm skin. But you can do little more than pretend you aren't slowly falling apart as the love you try to deny battles the guilt and paranoia that have become as much a part of you--both of you--as your world continues to spiral out of control.
***
When he comes home smelling like woman--a nauseating rush of cheap, fruity perfume not quite masked by the stink of cigarettes and alcohol--is when you decide that maybe you should re-evaluate what you're both doing sharing a flat like a ‘normal' couple.
You've never been exclusive and you've both had other partners, but you felt secure in knowing he'd always ask before bedding some tart he'd met at a pub.
A selfish part of you hoped you'd be the only one he wanted. Or at least the one he came home to.
You know you've been pushing him away, constantly wondering if he's simply overshadowed by dark magic or if the proverbial apple hasn't fallen far from the tree. And the tension that rolls off him nowadays and all the time spent away from you with no alibi makes you wonder what you did or didn't do.
The memory of the scent lingers long after he's showered and sleeping fitfully in the bedroom, burning your nostrils in the cold night air as you walk the streets to try to clear your head.
The moon is slowly waning, but the wolf is angry. He's ready for a fight or a fuck--whichever comes first doesn't matter--and for once you're more than happy to let him have it when you step into a bar whose neon lights, blaring disco and raging levels of testosterone are enough to choke you.
Tomorrow you'll feel guilty for fucking a blond whose name you'll never know in the loo.
Tonight you don't care.
You'll be moved out of the flat come the weekend.
You can't take this pain any more.
Your heart can't possibly break even more than it already is.
There's no one to blame but yourself for still loving Sirius with all that you have.
It'll be easier to set him free, knowing he can find someone better than you.
But you know won't love again.
Little do you know that neither will he.
***
The day you pack your suitcase is a Thursday.
There's no rain, no clouds, no tears pouring down your face like you expected. Instead, you feel hollow and gapingly empty inside. You've been trying to tell yourself to just go, that you shouldn't be waiting around until you can gather up the nerve to open the door and step across the threshold.
It's just a simple motion of putting one foot in front of the other--the first step towards a new part of your life--but it's the most difficult one you'll ever take.
When you finally decide to take it and open the door, you hear the tell-tale ‘pop' of Apparation only to find yourself with an armful of a distraught Sirius. His weight sends you stumbling back into the front room and you can feel the sobs as they wrack his body, hot tears soaking through your shirt.
You slide to the floor, asking questions you don't think he's hearing and trying not to let panic take you.
"Who, Sirius?" you say for a third time, pulling back to look him in the eye.
He just clings harder to you and you know you'll have bruises tomorrow.
"Sirius?" you try again and take his chin in your hand, forcing him to meet your gaze. "What's happened?"
His eyes are shining with tears, all the clouds you thought absent from the sky outside in them, and the pitiful noises he's making sound too much like Padfoot's whimpers.
"Regulus." The word comes out as a sob and fresh tears cascade down the plains of his face. "He's dead."
"How?" you ask and wrap him in your arms. You tuck his head under your chin with a kiss and he holds you even tighter.
"Voldemort. Killed him himself," Sirius says and his voice breaks. "Little bastard. I should have protected him. Should have been a better brother. Always was shit at it. Never told him that I loved him. Never thought I'd miss him.
"Love you, Moony. Love you so much," he mutters and you feel tears of your own burn your eyes. "Don't tell you enough. Love you. Always have. Always going to."
You hold him as he cries and if he knows you're crying too he doesn't show it. Leaving can wait for another day, another time when your world has turned from black to grey. He still needs you as much as you need him, even if you don't want to admit it anymore.
"I love you too."