My breathing was slow, shallow. I could hear it in my head, the way that the air barely reached my lips before I shot it away.
And my head rocked round and round with the feeling as though it weighed several tons. My head rocked round and round with the feeling as though all of the lava from my stomach had pooled in my skull and turned solid. It turned a heavy type of solid, one that seemed to pull me down and down forever.
And my eyes dropped open and shut slowly, so slowly that I nearly drifted off every time my lashes met.
And I couldn't move, but I could feel the cold blood draining from where my head hit the bricks. And I wondered each time my eyes shut if it would be the last.
A hollow wave washed over me and I knew that I was truly alone.
But I hoped that he was coming.
I watched through heavy eyes as the moon turned in the sky. I forced myself awake so that I could watch as it fell slowly, too slowly, behind a row of sleeping cottages.
And I tried to envision Remus getting home, walking through the front door, climbing the stairs. I tried to envision him stepping into our room, placing the door shut, dropping his bag at his feet. I tried to envision him collapsing into bed and realizing I was gone.
He would sit up, confused, and check the room, check the bathroom. He would check the whole house, calling my name: 'Syd? Sydney?', but he wouldn't find me. Maybe instead, he'd find the letter. And he would know what Peter had done.
I pictured him Apparating to the Potter's, walking through the broken door, and talking to Hagrid. I pictured Hagrid and Dumbledore explaining what happened, explaining what Peter had done.
I tried not to envision how he looked when he saw their bodies.
From there, Dumbledore would help him. And Remus would hate it. He would hate that he had to trust the one person he despised most, but he also wouldn't care. He wouldn't care about trusting Dumbledore because his hatred wasn't allowed to matter. He would just want to find me.
And they'd come looking, and they'd run past the sleeping cottages and the shops and the Halloween displays, just like Sirius and I had. And they'd find the alley like we did. And they'd find me.
He was coming, I knew he was.
But I wasn't sure how much longer I could wait.
The ghosts in the air had found me again. And they hovered all around me and washed through my skin and settled in my lungs. Cold and tired and sad.
And the ghosts were made of a cold mist that wrapped around the bones in my arms, legs, fingers, spine, and anywhere else they could reach. And they spread that cold to my muscles until my muscles froze over and stopped working.
And I watched through heavy eyes as the world slept.
And once, just once, I let my eyes close for an extra second.
The world was asleep, and, for just an extra second, so was I.
And for just a second the solidified lava in my head stopped shattering my skull, and my breathing slowed to nothing, and the ghosts slipped completely through my veins.
But then I felt my frozen muscles loosen up as two hands slipped under my back. And the sound faded in and I could hear him.
"Syd," he said. "Syd, fuck, wake up. Please wake up"
And I forced my eyes to drop open again, and he was here.
"Remus," I breathed, and hard tears spilled down like lava.
I could hardly see him against the lake of tears in my eyes, but I knew exactly what he looked like.
His face would be slightly longer and worn from the moon, and he would have a new scar, perhaps across his lips. His hair would be messy from running here, and it would stick slightly to his forehead.
And he would be crying. His bottomless and beautiful eyes would be spilling waterfalls of tears that would fall down his face like blood. Warm and full and draining.
"You're here," I said, and my body shook against his in something like a sob or a laugh or both.
"I'm here," Remus repeated softly, one of his hands dropping a broken wand to the ground and moving to the deep gash on the back of my head.
When his fingers met the blood, the ghosts returned. They slipped through the hole in my skull and rattled coldly around my head, setting off the solidified lava which began to slam harmfully against the wound.
I rolled closer to him, trying to force away the shivering ghosts. But I knew they were here to stay.
"Remus," I said, forcing my voice to break through my lips.
"Shh," he said. "It's okay, you're okay."
"No," I cried, trembling against him. "No, I'm n-not."
"You are," he insisted. "Everything's going to be fine."
And he turned his head and screamed for someone to help, but I knew they wouldn't. I knew we were alone.
"I'm s-so c-cold," I said as fresh tears escaped down my cheeks. Remus turned back to me and nodded quickly, wiping harshly at his eyes and then slipping his jacket off one arm at a time so as not to lose hold on my head.
He forced his coat around my shoulders and I tried to bury myself in it, but the ghosts were on the inside and didn't care about the useless clothing.
"Better?" He asked, pushing away the hair that had stuck to my wet face. I shook my head and forced my face into the crook of his elbow.
Remus's tears fell from his face and collected on mine, mixing in a stream of blood and ghosts. Cold and scared and sad. But I didn't care.
I kept my head buried into him, allowing his firewood smell to fill through my nose and push away the ghosts for a few moments. And I felt like as long as he was holding me, things weren't so terrible.
He turned and shouted again, and it was meaningless again.
"Stay awake for me, Syd," he said, rolling my face back to the sky. "Okay? Just stay awake."
I nodded slowly, forcing my eyes into his.
Remus had my body lying across his knees. With one hand he held onto the back of my head and with the other he traced his thumb along my cheek, brushing away new tears as quickly as they fell.
"I love you," I said. And Remus let out a hard and shattered breath.
"I know," he replied, and my heart dropped to my stomach like a rock.
"Say it back," I pleaded.
"No," he said. "We only say it back when something bad is happening."
"Remus."
"Nothing bad is happening," he said. "You're going to be okay. Alright? Do you trust me?"
I looked into his deep and drowning eyes that spilled down waves of tears like blood and I nodded.
"Okay," he said. "Good, then just stay awake."
"Okay," I said quietly.
But time slurred together, ticking by in slow breaths and raining tears, and we were still alone. And I knew no one was coming.
And the stone in my head was expanding through my skull, pushing its way out the back with my blood and tearing into my bones.
And the ghosts had made their way back into my bloodstream, where they chilled my veins and seeped across all the surfaces of my body in a fog of faded death.
And my eyes dropped slowly together and I let them, for just an extra second.
"Hey," Remus said softly, shaking my shoulders a bit.
"Sorry," I said, opening my tear-filled eyes again. "I'm just really tired."
"I'll keep talking," Remus offered. "To keep you awake, okay?"
"Okay," I mumbled.
Remus shifted my body in his grasp and then moved his hand to cup the side of my face. I nearly melted into his hold before remembering that I needed to fight the sleep.
"I had a dream about the kids yesterday night," Remus said. "Like yours."
"You did?"
"Yeah," Remus nodded. "We were out for ice cream and the boy wanted to get his in a cone, because he said that bowls were only for small children."
I smiled against the ghosts for a moment, envisioning the boy's small hands holding a large cone.
"And, um, the girl," continued Remus. "She was teasing him about it, saying he was far too clumsy to have ice cream in a cone."
"She was probably right," I said.
"She was," said Remus, with a small laugh. "He got it all over his new shoes and he cried for ages."
"And then what happened?"
"You paid for a new one and tipped the cone into a cup so that he could have both," Remus said.
"Genius," I whispered.
Remus fell quiet for a moment, save his shoddy breathing that rattled through his lips like ghosts, fresh ghosts that wove their way down my throat and wrapped around my heart.
And I watched through heavy eyes as my hand rose to hold Remus's damp face. And I could feel the fresh cut across his pink lips as he pressed a kiss to my fingers.
And I wasn't sure how much longer I could wait.
With my eyes open, I could see the slice across his mouth and the way that his hair pressed to his forehead and the way his face was slightly longer from the moon.
But I could also see the way that the depths of his eyes drained down his face as though they were made of his blood. I could see the way his body shook with every breath. I could see the way he fell apart.
When I closed my eyes, though, I could still see his pink lips and new cut and messy hair. I could still feel his hand on my face and I knew he was there.
But I could pretend that his eyes were full again. I could pretend his chest was shaking in a laugh. I could pretend he was whole.
"Syd, please," he whispered. "Just a little while longer."
"They're not coming," I said, opening my eyes for him. "We're alone."
"That's never been an issue before," he whispered. "Just you and me."
And his whole body trembled as the words left his lips. And his eyes shallowed as he cried an ocean.
"You and me," he said again, and he held out his finger.
"Remus," I whispered, begging him not to make me say it, begging him not to make me lie.
"You and me," he repeated, more desperately.
I lifted my pinky to his and our gold rings touched, but they did not turn white. Our gold rings touched but there wasn't enough life for them to click.
"Forever," I sobbed.
And the stone in my head cracked open as lava poured across my body.
And the ghosts were drowned away, suffocated in the thick tsunami.
And the lava washed through my head, my chest, my arms, my legs, before draining through my tears and leaving me without ghosts and without warmth and without cold.
The lava drained through my tears and I was hollow like a cave and I could hardly see, hardly feel, hardly breathe.
"You're not okay," Remus whispered.
I shook my head as tears like lava mixed with tears like blood.
"It's okay," he said.
And he pressed a long kiss to my forehead, replacing the lava with an ocean.
The ocean streamed from the kiss, tossing me side to side in his love and rushing me back and forth in the current until I floated seamlessly to the bottom.
"I love you," he whispered.
And I forced myself awake so that I could look once more into his eyes. His eyes that were golden-brown and enrapturing and beautiful. His eyes that swallowed me whole with every glance, every wink, every smile. His eyes that I fell in love with so quickly, only to lose in a heartbeat.
His eyes that had poured their depths into me for the last time.
"I know," I said softly. And my eyes closed for more than just a second, and it was okay.
My eyes closed and my last tears fell, dripping down my face with a line of salt as if they had come straight from the ocean.
My eyes closed and I allowed the waves to crash through me, carrying me off to sea and setting me at the bottom.
My eyes closed and my breathing slowed to nothing.
My eyes closed and there was no lava, no ghosts, no pain.
My eyes closed, and there was only Remus.
And that was perfect.
______
A/N
go to the next part
song: till forever falls apart - ashe
how it applies: forever fell apart
"i swear that i'll be yours forever till forever falls apart"
"we never had it from the start"