Musically Yours // Wolfstar One-Shots

Why Don't You Love Me

A/N this physically hurt me to write so if it hurts you to read i'm so sorry but this story was begging to be written

It was a typical dreary Saturday at Number 12 Grimmauld Place. Sirius sipped his tea in the dirty kitchen, gazing out the window toward the complete freedom that was just out of his reach. His mind flashed to better times; days spent marauding about the Hogwarts grounds with his best friends, nights spent cuddled with his boyfriend by the fireplace in the Common Room...

Sirius shook his head, doing his best to leave those thoughts locked in the back of his mind.

His relationship with Remus hadn't been the same since he had returned from Azkaban. He understood this, of course; both men had been cut off from each other for twelve years, one thinking the other had committed the ultimate betrayal. Even though Remus now knew that Sirius was innocent, it was hard to snap back to the place they were before Halloween night of 1981.

Still, Sirius held onto the hope that they would be able to make it back to that place. That, despite the trauma they both endured and the ways they have both changed, they would be able to fall in love once more.

Sirius's reverie was broken by the sound of a crashing umbrella stand and a chorus of laughter. One of the giggles he heard was high pitched and breathless, broken by short exclamations about the inanimate object the owner had knocked over for the umpteenth time. The other source of laughter was gentler and deeper, its warmth and familiarity setting off the butterflies in Sirius's stomach, even after all this time.

He turned to the door with a smile on his face, but that smile quickly turned from natural to forced as the door opened and he took in the scene just beyond its threshold.

Remus and Tonks both looked weary but happy now that they had returned from a long mission for the Order. They were still laughing as they walked into the room, but this was not what made the butterflies floating in Sirius's stomach suddenly turn to ice.

It was the way Remus was looking at her.

Remus's eyes were sparkling as he laughed with Tonks. His cheeks were flushed with happiness, and his mouth displayed a smile so genuine and rare that it nearly brought tears to Sirius's eyes, having forgotten what that smile looked like.

Remus gazed at Tonks as though she were the only thing in the room - he might think that, actually, because he hadn't taken his eyes off her long enough to notice that Sirius was standing by the window.

Sirius's mind was going a mile a minute, concentrating on only one fact but buzzing with its implications:

Remus was looking at Tonks the way he used to look at Sirius.

The two weren't officially together - Sirius knew that Remus would have at least had the decency to tell him if they were - but it was only a matter of time. Remus found it hard to let his guard down around others; whenever he did so, it meant Remus loved that person, in one way or another, and had formed a special bond with them. Sirius had always assumed this quality would ensure that Remus would have the room in his heart to welcome Sirius back into it with open arms.

Sirius never expected someone else to take that space that he had vacated all those years ago.

Knives sliced through Sirius's heart as Remus finally noticed he was there, his goofy smile melting into one of nervous guilt.

"Oh, Sirius! I didn't see you there," he said softly, avoiding eye contact with his former lover as he scratched the back of his neck. "We just got back, and Tonks knocked over the umbrella stand...again."

Tonks began to giggle, and the blades twisted in Sirius's chest as Remus started laughing along with her. Sirius tried to laugh with them too, as if nothing was wrong, as if his heart wasn't being ripped to shreds right there in front of them, but all he managed to let out was a strangled bark.