f: And Still I (R/S, PG)
And Still I, PG, 325 words. For Day 4. A sequel/companion to With Him Wherever, but can stand alone.



The sunlight, harsh and empty, makes him weary -- the nights are worse, all buzzing flies and fists in blankets, wide-open eyes for hours, an endless wait for life or death to sit up and notice him. Sirius holds his breath for long spells and listens to the street noises: murmurs, clacks, roars.

He imagines all roads lead to the thud-thud in the left of his chest, and listens for the door to open, for 'Avada --' or for 'Sirius --?' and is disappointed when neither comes, and the sun rises in the same place it did yesterday.

When he can't sleep he lies on his stomach with parchment on his pillow and writes blindly in the dark, Moony, Moony, Moony. He does not say much in two, three carelessly-cut pages, but Remus says even less back on his dirt-smudged scraps with the ink water-run across them: It's cold here; it's raining again; sometimes I wonder -- do you?

Sirius wonders.

You gave me hyacinths first a year ago, Remus writes once. Sirius has never given him a hyacinth in his life. He pins it to the peeling wallpaper beside his bed anyway and reads it every time a passing vehicle drags light through the room, a dozen times, then half a drowsy dozen more before he falls asleep.

In the morning he has kicked his blanket and pillow both to the floor, and he still doesn't understand. But with a small touch of magic he squeezes his hand through a fence that evening and snaps a handful of nondescript pink from a stranger's garden. Bugs crawl out of it, onto his fingers and up his arm, and he flicks them away one after the other while he walks home.

He presses the blooms first between Hamlet and Lear, then between the pages of his next letter, flat and dry and nearly dust; writes, Come home, bring your rain; and waits.