Hell of a Thing

I assume that everyone has, at one point or another, been mad about somebody who doesn't exactly fancy them in return. It's a common phenomena, I'm sure, yet we all piss and moan when it happens to us as if it was the end of the world. Logically, I should look at the situation from a detached perspective and see how common it is and just tell myself to get over myself. Of course, my situation is not exactly the norm. First of all, the average crush doesn't have to cope with the added bonus of having to hide your true lycanthropic nature from your bestest buds until they eventually and inevitably find out and miraculously don't avoid you from thence forward. And they usually find themselves NOT transforming into a rabid, self-hating wolf-beast once a month. I'm just speaking in generalizations here. If you happen to share my little problem, well, it just proves my point, doesn't it? We all go through this and yet we are filled with self-pity in its most selfish strain when we bump into it once again.

Stupid. Really, quite stupid.

Did I mention that besides the problem with me and my monthly animalistic tendencies, the person I fancy also happens to share my gender? And my room, too. And as lovely in a romance-novel kind of way as that might seem to some, I am here to tell you it's not. Not in the least. There's the small problem of nudity. In other situations, I can think of nothing and no one I'd like to see naked more than him, but it's a little embarrassing to blush like a twelve year old girl and have to stumble out of the room with some hurried (and completely insane) excuse like, "I seem to have forgotten to do my morning yoga. You'll pardon me while I see to that? Somewhere that is not here?" and then walk into the door instead of through it. Oh yes, it's ADORABLE. (note sarcasm) And such fun.

Of course, there's also that lovely problem of being one of his closest friends too. I get to have lovely and long conversations about his weekly conquests ALL the time. I get to hand out my sage-like wisdom constantly because, adore him though I do, he's an idiot and doesn't know a thing about women. Or men, for that matter. Just look at us. We've lived together for a year now outside of school, and for seven while IN school, and he still doesn't know he's living with a gay werewolf. He picked up on the werewolf thing relatively quickly, but the homosexuality has just slipped past him.

Ignoramus. Honestly. I could tattoo a rainbow on my forehead and I bet he'd think it was just a great joke.

I can't actually remember the reason why or the when or the how about beginning to fancy him. Maybe it was a constant from the moment I met him onwards, though I don't think I believe in love at first sight and I certainly felt no upwelling of emotion on the steps of Hogwarts eight years ago. I was worried more about the scar running from the left of my nose, across my cheek, and to my left shoulder blade from the transformation I had just finished only days before. Back then, pre-Hogwarts, my parents hardly knew what to do with their werewolf son once a month, so they chained me as best they could, locked the basement every way they could think of, and hoped for the best. Nine times out of ten, I would take a couple of nasty chunks out of myself and need a good week to recuperate. I had some serious scars everywhere, but this was a fresh one and so really red and obvious. Of course the wolf would attack itself in the face a few days before I started school. It makes so much sense with my luck.

So I had brushed my hair forwards completely, in that inimitable teenage-boy logic about hair, and so I looked like . . . something you cat might drag in after it had murdered it. And it rained as well, of course. So I was a soaked dead furry thing with a giant scar. Honestly, I don't know how I ever made a single friend my entire time there. My robes were also quite on the shabby side. My family had spent most of the savings my parents had thoughtfully prepared in their early marriage years for their potential children's futures on trying to find a cure for or at least some easier way of dealing with my condition, so we had never had any spare cash. I hardly minded it, though. Who can care about the threadbare elbow or two when they know they're going to rip through their own skin in a few weeks? I was still so short too. I had my baby-fat face still, with huge pink cheeks and huge, always-shocked-looking eyes, but I had just begun a growth spurt, so I was skinny and waif-like as well. My elbows were much too big for my arms and my head looked like it was waiting for a sign to start maturing even though my body had left it behind ages ago. Really, I was quite an awkward child.

Sirius, though. Sirius was a beautiful child. There must be a different water source for rich children or something, because I have never seen an ugly rich child. They all have impeccable skin and shining, glorious hair and beautiful, well-sized eyes. Maybe it's just that rich children can afford to skip their awkward periods of adolescence. He was really quite a stunner, even then. Perfect robes, not a hair out of place, and everything was exactly as it should be. You could tell he was one of those active boys by the twinkle in his eyes and the thorough tan from head to toe. Not an ounce of fat on him, either. He looked like a haughty prick, though, I have to say. He had his nose just slightly turned upwards as if there was a stench of poverty or something.

I have to add a side note here, in case you've gotten the wrong impression. I was NOT studying Sirius Black on my first day at Hogwarts. I may have noticed quite a few details and they may still be engraved in my memory, but that was hardly because of any excess of affection for him at such an early point. I just...noticed him. I couldn't help it. He looked to be pretty much everything I had ever wanted to be, as far as the eleven year old imagination goes. Of course I could tell he was rich, I even recognized him as a Black.

I didn't speak to him then, or for most of that year. Towards the end of the year, James sort of accidentally offered me friendship and I grasped at it like a drowning victim. I hadn't had a close friend since I was six, which had to end when I was bitten.

He had been a really nice Muggle boy, something Hallam, the son of my mother's friend from her Muggle college. We had lived next door to each other for our entire lives and had been almost like brothers. It was too dangerous to closely interact with Muggles after my incident, so my parents had moved away suddenly. I had never even said goodbye to the kid.

So, back to the point. I didn't 'fall in love' with Sirius right away. I hardly knew him. I adored them, all three of them, for their generosity towards me, even before they became animagi for my sake and didn't despise me for my lycanthropy. I still do, in a different way. I had to re-think my infatuation with Sirius after the whole Snape prank. That through me for a bit of a loop, I have to say. I still have a twinge of guilt every time I think of how easily I forgave him for that. It didn't take much. He just found me late at night while I was brooding and delaying going back to our dorm to avoid having the talk he wanted to have so badly because I knew that if he looked at me the way he, of course, looked at me, my knees would buckle and I would forgive. Immediately forgive him. Which I did as soon as he touched my shoulder. He always does that. He must think I can't tell when he's in the room or something, as if I can't smell him from a mile away (keep the wolf-nose in mind, I don't mean to imply he showers infrequently) or be able to distinguish his walk from a crowd. I don't know who he thinks I am. Of course I can tell when he's in the room, especially if he's the only other one in the room and it's late at night. I have to tell you, I am never so aware of anything as I am aware of him when we're alone in a room late at night. So he touched me on the shoulder, I looked up and forgave. He talked for a bit before I admitted it, but it was that swift.

I had some heavy thinking afterwards, though. I forgave, but what the hell kind of womanish man was I to just let something like that go in the face of ... well, that face? Who idolizes and adores their friends enough to forgive them for almost making them into murderers? I really wanted, at that point, to find some way of remaining friends with ... I want to them, but it was really just Sirius . . . him, but to stop depending on him for my sense of self-worth. No small order. I worked hard, I thought hard, I did a lot of soul searching. Eventually, I came up with some sort of middle ground. Actually, it was more the fact that James finally convinced (a.k.a. conned) Lily into going out with him that led Sirius to hang out with me more. Peter was hardly his cup of tea, especially alone. They barely got on with me or James mediating between them. So, for a while during our last year or two, it was just us. I got used to the butterflies in my stomach etc., and that led to us being able to share a flat the year after we graduated.

All this is well and good, but then the idiot, not the IGNORAMUS, goes and make a mess of everything. Here I am, balanced on the fine line between friendship and unrequited affection, and then he goes and upsets my perfect system.

I've been working in a candy store for Muggles that's about three blocks away from our flat. It's a VERY badly paying job, especially when you keep in mind the conversion rates between Muggle and wizard money. Honestly, it's barely worth it. It keeps me supplied in necessities, barely. Every now and then, I make it through a couple of days to a week on a cup of ramen once a day for a quarter from the café under our flat (which is run by a bloke I just happen to have a running flirtation with).

So, a week ago Monday, I was on my way back from my menial labor and had stopped in at the café for a bowl of ramen and the VERY good looking man who happened to occasionally look back with relatively equal interest (as opposed to the one up in my flat). He has dark hair, but it's short and well-kept, as opposed to Sirius who always keeps his long and mussy-looking. It was quite late so the place was almost entirely empty except for a couple in the corner much more involved in each other than the rest of the world. So, somewhere between instant ramen number one and free cup of coffee number six, we might have started flirting a little stronger than usual. He sat down at the counter next to me and our knees were touching and we kept brushing our fingers over the mug of coffee we ended up sharing, and then he leaned over and kissed me.

I have to pause for a minute. We've covered how everybody has, at some point, fancied someone who doesn't fancy them back. So, you must sympathize when I tell you that I am a bloke who has fancied the same bloke for ages without so much as a glance in return. It's nice to find out that you actually are fanciable after all. So a good looking bloke leans over for a kiss and I have to admit that my mental process pretty much stopped. I can't entirely be blamed for the fact that Sirius happened to walk by at that point. I don't have the foggiest idea what he was doing that late out and about and frankly, I don't care. I was busy, damn it. Apparently, my current occupation mattered a lot to Sirius, though. I got an earful about it the next morning. Yes, the next morning. I might have gone home with the "café man-whore," as Sirius calls him. Frankly, I don't see how it's any of his business.

"Well, look," Sirius said, after some unnecessary name-calling of the poor café man-whore, "You can't just sleep with anybody, right? I mean...the hygiene!"

"The hygiene?!" I responded with not a small amount of my own share of anger. I mean, here's the man that has been a fixture in my fantasy life for over half a decade telling me to cool off my almost non-existent love life. Not to mention that he has, of course, been quite a man-whore himself lately. "Really? Since we're talking hygiene now, let's talk about how there have been three different girls here in the past two weeks and they weren't here for me! But perhaps it's not the anonymity of my choice of partners that concerns you but the gender!"

"You couldn't just say something clearly for once?" Sirius fumed back at me. "If you have something to say, just say it, damn it!"

"Oh, so now I'm the one being unclear?" I shouted, "Alright, let's be perfectly clear: Are you offended by the idea of me having sex with someone I don't know or the idea of me having sex with a man? If it's the latter, I'm afraid you better wrap your head around the idea or find a new roommate because that's an aspect I can't exactly change!"

Sirius opened his mouth and closed it again. "You . . . you're gay?!" He finally stammered. I mean, really. You find me lip-locked with a bloke and then I disappear for the night, I'd venture to say, yes, I am gay. Like I said, he's a lovely man and all but not so blessed in the intellect.

"Well, if sleeping with only men doesn't qualify me for homosexuality, I really don't know what does," I well night spat. "I don't get to do it often, but I still think I meet the cut!"

"Since when are you gay?!" Sirius shouted. We'd been almost screaming at each other since the moment I walked in the door with barely a pause for breath. I was so angry I could barely see straight. We were just standing there, in front of the door, with him in his pajamas and a rapidly cooling mug of coffee in one hand and me in the clothes I knew he recognized from yesterday only now they were much messier, screaming at each other like banshees. I've never been so angry with him before and I don't even know why I was so angry then. He was reacting the way I had always known he would react when he found out. I had never put much effort into hiding my homosexuality, but I had never had many opportunities to be blatant about it. I slept with a guy from my hometown over vac the summer before our seventh year and then another time right after me and Sirius moved into London, but that was pretty much it. I didn't hide it, but I didn't exactly talk about it either, I have to admit. I always knew that Sirius would react badly, though. I just figured he'd put two and two together and realize that I had fancied him for years and become disgusted. I should have known he'd stall at the first step and just be disgusted by the homosexuality without the two and two.

"I've always been gay, you idiot!" I screamed at him.

"I mean since when have you known about it!?" he screamed back. "Goddammit, I just want to know how long you've known about it and not told me!"

"What? Scared that I might have looked at you funny at some point? Scared to live with the gay now? Fine!" I took a deep breath. "I've known I was gay since I had my first wet dream and it was about a bloke instead of a girl! I've known about it since I first checked out a man's backside and been completely unfazed by the most magnificent set of breasts you and James ever slobbered over! But really, I've been completely sure since I shagged a bloke the first time two years ago!"

"And when I've been telling you everything that's mattered to me in that whole time, you've left out that you fancy a new gender?" Sirius shouted.

"I just told you I didn't start to fancy a new gender, this is the one I've fancied all along! It doesn't come and go, it's a fucking constant!" I shouted. "And I get it already! I'll be out by the end of the week, you don't have to worry about it anymore." By the end of that sentence, my voice had run out of volume. I just didn't have it in me to shout anymore.

"Who the hell said anything about you moving out? You're paranoid, you idiot!" Sirius said, but his voice had gotten quieter as well.

And then the bastard did the strangest thing. He put a hand to my face and got suddenly very close. I don't know what the hell he was thinking. Straight men ought to be prevented from doing that.

"I don't want you to go anywhere," he said so quietly I wouldn't be too far off calling it whispering.

What the hell kind of straight man goes and whispers something like that to their gay roommate while cupping their face gently? I mean . . . honestly! I know the man likes the opposite gender because the opposite gender has frequently made very loud sounds very late at night in his room on many occasions. There is no doubt of the straightness of Sirius and there never has been. I have never once hoped for anything between me and Sirius despite the torch I have been holding. I am not a man who hopes for illogical and impossible things. I might dream about it, yes, but not hope for it. A man can't control his dreams, but he sure as hell can control what he actively hopes for and Sirius I did not hope for. Not anymore. Maybe at age 16, when hormones are a new thing and so unpredictable and uncontrollable, but certainly not for quite a long time.

And it was this confusion and the already present annoyance that prompted me to roughly push his hand aside and brush past him into my room. I waited for him to leave, which he had to do shortly due to work, and then I showered and got dressed, all the while mulling over our argument in my mind. I don't always know what I've said after an argument of that magnitude. I get so angry that, to abuse the cliché, I don't see straight. I couldn't figure out when I had stopped believe that Sirius' anger was prompted by homophobia and started being convinced that I didn't understand his motives. I really couldn't put my finger on it and I didn't see what he could possibly be so angry about seeing as I hadn't done a damn thing that was any of his damn business.

I left much later for work than my employers probably would like, but, thanks to the wonders of being born with magical powers that they couldn't understand, I got there a minute and a half early for work. I kept going through the argument again and again all throughout the day as well as musing about the night before. It had been a while, so maybe I wasn't the best judge, but I had a feeling that I had just had a really good night. I could have gone home immediately after work and fixed things with Sirius, but I decided to throw that out. I have spent years and years watching over him and cleaning up his messes and helping him. I am, frankly, sick of putting that much effort into a man who, while a wonderful man, does not respond in anywhere near the same degree. So I didn't go home to Sirius that night after work, I chose to return to the café and to the beautiful man who worked there.

I don't know what I expected when I walked in the door. The paranoid and cynical side of me expected to see disgust at the pretension of a one-night stand who returns the next day, but the hopeful and optimistic side of me (by far the minority) thought there might be a chance that there had actually been some sort of affection in the middle of all that mutual attraction. He was taking an order when I walked in, but he smiled and waved a small wave. I sat down at the counter again but not in the same spot as the night before. For some reason, I didn't want to sit there. I had half thought that making this very clear choice, the coming here and not returning home, would finally push the argument of the morning out of my mind once and for all. I had thought that maybe what was bothering me was that Sirius had opened an old wound of sorts, obviously without meaning to, and left me open to all that insecurity and disappointment that comes with loving him.

Loving him.

It's that, isn't it? That's what is really bothering me. It's not that he behaved inappropriately or that I re-woke the old affection I had for him because neither is true. He behaved exactly as he always does, he is Sirius. He doesn't believe in personal boundaries or letting me brood for too long or drinking tea or putting away fresh laundry right away or separation, and I love him for all of it. And I love him and love him and love him and that's all there is. There's nothing in return, no equality. It's just me, pouring out into a void.

Can't be healthy.

A cup of tea appeared in front of me and I looked up at the face that was most certainly not Sirius' and thought to myself, 'There are worse things you could do.' That's it. Hardly a romantic beginning.

"Penny for 'em, Rems?" he asked with a crooked grin. I almost didn't catch it, but that nickname. . . I hadn't heard it in ages. In fact, I could count the number of people who call me that one hand and still have left over fingers. I had already opened my mouth to give some evasive answer, but froze as confusion reigned. He laughed suddenly, but it wasn't a barking laugh. It was a quiet laugh and very warm.

"I thought you'd have recognized me by this point, but you always were slow on the uptake," he said, as he refilled a coffee pot behind the counter. "I'm John Hallam. You know, the boy who you used to live next door to? Back in Scunthorpe?"

Realization dawned, apparently in a very obvious way because he laughed again. This time I joined in, and embarrassment is not strong enough to describe the feeling I had then. I had slept with the man without knowing that ... I knew him. Amazingly enough, though, we fell back into easy conversation. He looked interested every time I spoke, as if he really wanted to hear me and not because he was waiting for his next turn to speak. There was nothing impatient or hurried about him at all. I couldn't help comparing him to Sirius in my mind. I doubt I would have been able to sit for six hours in a café drinking tea with Sirius. He'd have wanted to leave, to do something, to rush off somewhere. I could sit here with John and reminisce about my mother's homemade chocolate chip cookies without worrying that he'd be bored and eventually begin to pace until I released him. Eventually, the conversation wound its way to Sirius and our extremely long friendship.

"He's quite fit, isn't he?" John said. I looked into my tea and nodded.

"Quite. I'd say it's safe to say he's one of the best-looking blokes I know," I replied. At some point, John had pulled out some really nice tea, some French blend, and I watched the little tea bits float around the bottom of the cup. We'd also shifted from the counter to some easy chairs by the window an hour or two before. It was quite late at night, and almost no one was around.

"I bet he fancies you," John said suddenly and I almost dropped by tea.

"Fancies -- what? Sirius?" I stammered, my heart suddenly beating a little faster for no reason, "Not a chance. That boy is as straight as they come." John chuckled and wrapped his hands around his tea a little tighter.

"Well, that may be, but I don't know what else to think of a bloke who sits outside a café for four hours waiting for another bloke to come out of it if there's no romantic interest on his side," John said. My head jerked up and I looked out the window. Sure enough, I could make out Sirius' shape across the round-about, sitting at a park bench. I glance back at John and he grinned, but not in the same way he had when I had come in at the beginning of the night. This time it had a hint of sadness somewhere.

"We had a huge fight this morning - when I came back," I said hurriedly. "He probably just wants to make up." My eyes had drifted back to Sirius as I spoke. It's bloody November and getting pretty chilly and he was sitting outside for. . . did John say four hours?

"Look, Rems," John said, "I'd like to be your friend again, at least. I can't say that, after last night, my hopes weren't up a little higher, but friends is better than nothing, yeah? So let's just . . . call it quits for the night, alright? You've got a well nigh frozen roommate out there, and I've got dishes." With that, he just got up and cleared away our tea cups. With his back turned to me, he waved me away as I opened my mouth to either disagree or thank him, I don't even know which. I walked out the door, listening for the jingle of the bell as it closed behind me. It was a chilly night, after all. Sirius was a fool to be sitting out in it.

I made my way across the round about slowly, and even slower took a place next to him on the bench.

"You know, Pads, you always feel the need to touch me on the shoulder or something along those lines when I already know you're in the room, but you don't give me even the slightest clue that you're sitting alone on a freezing bench in the dead of night," I said, trying to insert some humor into what was bound to be a very solemn talk.

"Yeah, I'm smart like that," he said quietly. A long pause followed.

"So - funny story - it turns out that John over there, the 'café man-whore', used to be my next door neighbor when I was a kid, before I was bitten," I said conversationally. Sirius looked up sharply.

"Were you guys close?" he asked, with purposeful neutrality.

"Yeah. He was pretty much my closest friend then. Our mothers had been friends for ages, so we were always together." I leaned back slightly and pulled my sleeves down over my hands. It really was a chilly night.

"That close, huh?" he said. He pulled a pair of his expensive gloves out of his pocket and handed them to me.

"Thanks. Yeah, we were," I said as I pulled the gloves on. "Of course, I haven't seen him in ages. My family moved away after I was bitten. He doesn't even know I'm a wizard, let alone a werewolf."

"He's pretty hot." He didn't look up still and I couldn't help grinning.

"He is that," I agreed. "Great abs."

"Look, Mooney," Sirius suddenly turned to face me head on, "I don't do this bit well. I just wanted to say that I was sorry, ok? I shouldn't have yelled at you for having one night on the town when you've put up with much worse from me dozens of times."

"I don't even know why you were so angry to begin with," I answered honestly. "You're hardly Puritanical about sex."

"Yeah - usually," Sirius admitted. "I don't know why, but when it's . . . when it's you . . ."

"Please tell me that's not a reaction to my kind of sex including more men then you're used to," I said half-jokingly. I still couldn't believe that he was saying what it was beginning to sound like he was saying.

"Hardly," he said with a bark-laugh. "I'd have to be a hell of a hypocrite to be upset by that."

Let me tell you, there was one long ass pause here. I tried to wrap my brain around what he had just said, and it just wouldn't fit.

"How - how do you figure?" I finally asked. "I mean - the hypocrite bit - how do you become a hypocrite here?"

This time he laughed a full laugh. "The part where I've had your kind of sex before and find the abundance of men to be a really nice bonus."

"But - all those girls . . ." I stammered.

"Yeah, that," he said and nudged himself a tiny bit closer so that our legs were touching, "not nearly as much fun."

"That so?" I gulped. Emotions were on a marathon musical chairs game in my head. He was getting even closer.

"Yeah. See, there was this major problem with every girl," he continued and started to lean towards me. "They were all very much not you."

If there wasn't so much noise in my head, I might have made some witty and/or romantic reply, but I could barely manage to stay dignified.

"See, Mooney, I have to tell you that I have been crazy about you for ages," he continued and I could feel his breath on my face even though I could swear I must have fallen asleep at some point and entered into an immensely pleasant dream. "I guess I never noticed you were gay because I was trying to hard to convince myself it was futile to be in love with you. All the girls, everything, it was all to get you out of my head."

Now, I'm going to end this with an authorial note. I may not be the expert on these sorts of things due to lack of experience. I may have been in love with the same guy since the day I saw him on the steps of Hogwarts eight years ago, no matter how much I've denied it to myself over the years, and I may not know everything there is to know about romance. But I have to tell you, when you've waited that long to finally kiss the man of your dreams . . . it's a hell of a thing.

The End