Please take it easy on me,
a wolfstar oneshot | hurt/comfort, wc: 1436
after years of running around their feelings and giving into their desires, they realize there’s more to what they have. remus wants more, sirius doesn’t know if he’s allowed to, the real him.
Sirius always laughed the most. His voice echoed in a room filled with people. His eyes shone from miles away. Sirius was the brightest star. That’s what he likes other people to see, not the mess behind his curls or the tears behind his eyes. Those stayed hidden, locked away from everyone, well, everyone except for Remus. He doesn’t know that yet. He doesn’t know Remus sees him whole. Bits and pieces he tries to swipe under the rug, Remus sees them all.
See now, Sirius thought, only showing other people what you want them to see will make others accept him, love him more. But he didn’t know he would lose himself in the process. Because other people loving you for what you pretend to be is worse than not being loved at all, because the constant reminder of his inner voice saying "you’re fooling them all" is like a brain-eating cricket in his ear, and if that voice sometimes starts to sound like his mother, well, he chooses to ignore that.
Is this really him? Does he just put a mask on for everybody? Where does it end, and where does his face start? Even in his own room at night, he can’t find the end of the veil to pull it off. Sirius realizes that one night. And, perhaps it’s for the best. Maybe he can lie to himself that he’s the person he tried to be his whole life.
Remus sees him whole; he adores and chooses to love all of him. One night, exasperated yells sound in the living room of Remus's apartment. This palpable thing between them that has been going on for such a long time is addressed, and Sirius pushes him away after Remus confesses.
"You can’t, you can’t say that. You don’t know that," and Remus stares into his eyes right through him.
Sirius breaks in front of him because the man he loves so deeply poured his heart out, but Sirius has to remind himself. It’s not him who he loves. Because Sirius stuffs down any 'negative' traits, his impulsivity, insecurity, and vulnerability. He shoves them down and drowns them in a bottomless pit, everything he considers not perfect. An ugly, bad habit he got from his childhood, at least he is aware of it. But at what cost, when he's lived for so long coping in this way, he can't find his way back to living as himself. So Remus is in love with the idea of him, never Sirius.
And so Sirius breaks. It’s too late now.
"Don’t say that if you don’t mean it," he shrugs his shoulders, defeated. "You can’t." Remus’s eyebrows furrowed, but Sirius is spiraling.
"I don’t know ?" he asks, baffled. He doesn’t back down because he knows Sirius. The late-night talks and midnight kisses. Every sleep in each other's embrace, the comfort between them. Holding hands and gravitating towards each other every day means something deeper, at least to Remus, they do. Years of friendship and then more years of something else between friends and lovers. And if Remus is nothing more than something Sirius can discard, then he wants to hear it loud and clear. If Remus is crazy, and it all means nothing, it’s all right, but the sadness in Sirius's eyes haunts him whenever he breathes. He doesn’t want to give up on them, on him, not when he’s known what it's like to be given up on.
"I- You-" Sirius tries to find his words, frustration building up. The feeling of running away and never looking back is building up too.
"You don’t love me. I don’t let you." He drags a hand through his hair. "I know you think this is me and you like me, but it’s only what I let you see. It’s not-" A spark of anger steams in Remus.
"Don't do that. Don't you dare dismiss my feelings and tell me how I feel. Do not doubt the way I burn for you. It hurts me," he finishes calmly.
"I'm sorry, I didn't- I didn't mean it that way. I just don't think you see what I see, who I am, I'm sorry I-" This is new to Sirius, communicating so openly, the dam broke. Remus was in front of him, being the first person to cut himself open and put all of himself on the table for him. Sirius would bleed happily in front of Remus if it meant giving him a chance to keep him.
Remus just stares at him, "And who are you, Sirius? If not, the one in front of me. Who are you, if not the person I fell in love with?"
Sirius's voice cracked, “Stop saying that, stop saying you love me when I know that if you'd see me as I am, you’d run away. " his tears and his eyes glistened.
Remus takes a step closer to him, eyebrows furrowed, trying to understand, "Who are you?" He asks once again because Remus has read Sirius like a book. Like a hardcover, he holds on his nightstand, his favorite book. He rereads it all over again from start to end.
"I'm mean, and I push everyone away, and I don’t like a lot of people, not really,"
"I don’t like a lot of people either, except you."
"I’m broken. There’s something so wrong with me. I can feel it. Right here," Sirius pointed to his chest desperately. like he truly believed he was damaged. "I can't explain it, but I feel it deep down, in all my bones. And you’re going to wake up one day, and I’ll be in bed next to you, and you see that when I’m sleeping, the pieces fall." Sirius gives up.
"Then let me hold them, Remus said softly, taking another step towards him. "Let me hold those pieces you’re so afraid of. Let me take the weight off you so you can sleep every night. Let me love you as you are. Good and bad, nightmares and dreams."
Sirius's tears stop running down his cheeks. Remus takes them between his hands. "If you think even for a second that I don’t know you after all those years, you’re wrong." Sirius interrupts him abruptly. "I don’t let you."
Remus matches his tone and pace. "You can fool whomever you want, but I see you, and I’ve stood by you day after day. I have loved you ever since you first looked at me, Sirius. " His body didn’t seem so tense anymore.
Sirius's eyes mirrored the battle in his head." I'm complicated like a bunch of mushed letters. I don't even know myself," he whispers.
"Thank God I like crosswords then," he said softly.
"I don’t think I’ll ever escape my past, " Sirius finds another reason. Sirius searched for another excuse not to let himself find happiness. If he found it, they would take it away from him. They always did, the ghosts of his past.
"Then let me be your future. Just say when, and I’ll continue to hold your hand." This time sirius comes closer, if that was even possible, he steps on the soft carpet, his body now pressed to Remus.
" Don’t let me go, please," Remus felt his heart clench. Oh, his lovely boy. How could he not love him? "I love you too," he said, and Remus let out a breath he didn’t know held in.
"Of course I do, how could I not, Moony?" Their lips were so close now. And Remus wanted to feel them again, like a pattern to retrace.
"That’s why I’m scared. I haven’t loved anyone this much in my life so much that it consumes me whole, and I’m scared. I don’t want you to leave when you realize I might not be what you want, what you need."
"Sirius," he paused to make the other truly hear him.
"You are all I need," Remus whispered. Sirius sketched an uneasy but happy smile, letting the words settle in his brain. With that, their lips touched, and just like the first time they kissed under some random stairs at some random party. Just like every time they kissed, warmth was all around them.
They both pulled away breathlessly, completely immersed in the other, letting themselves bask in their confessions of love.
"Please be patient with me. Even when I run, when I push away, don’t give up on me. Please let me have this." Sirius whispers the last sentence to someone else, to the angel guiding him. Remus nodded before picking him up and diving into him.
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