Entry tags:

gen, lupin, r

Ficlet: ~Rain~ R
I said I was going to put fic here, but I haven't been. Let me correct that.


Title: Rain
Character: Lupin
Warnings: Suicide
Word count: 438

Note: Thanks to busaikko for beta help, for inspiring it, and for being the only person I know who would be delighted to learn she inspired a suicide fic.

~~Rain~~

Remus stood in front of the window in the dark flat. A streetlamp cast its weak light on his face, making shadows of the rivulets of rain that streamed down the glass. He could see them in his dim reflection on the glass, could see the rain, the shadows and the tears, that together looked as though they would wash his face away to nothingness.

The room was cold. The landlord had shut off the heat the week before because Remus was late with the rent again. Water seeped through the ceiling and dripped into a pan placed on the floor. It fell with the same steady rhythm as the beat of his heart.

He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. How could his heart still be beating? It felt swollen with pain, ready to tear open and empty itself into the hollow that his body had become. Hollow because his insides had been gnawed and chewed and torn into nothingness, until nothingness was all that was left, nothingness and the beating of his heart in time with the dripping of the rain. If one stopped, would the other go on?

They were gone. All of them. It was as though his love were a curse, condemning everyone it touched to a horrible death. There were many kinds of love, his mother had said. Love for family, for friends, for the special someone who held you in the night and soothed you until the terrors had receded, who made love to you as irrefutable proof that you were both alive.

There might be many kinds of love, but when they came from Remus Lupin they all meant one thing. Death.

It's not your fault.

How many times had he heard those words. He sighed. Maybe it wasn't his fault. Maybe it was, as someone had none to gently told him, thinking way too much of himself to think that the universe, the Dark Lord, or anyone else cared who one shabby werewolf loved. But the reason didn't matter, did it? They all died regardless, until all that remained were the cold eyes of strangers that turned away from him in the street.

"The story doesn't stop here," his mother had insisted. "You must turn the page. Always turn the page and the story will go on."

Remus turned over the glass vial in his hand, watching the oily, yellow-green liquid catch the dim light from the street lamp.

"I'm sorry, mum." The cork made a small sucking sound as he pulled it free. "I've run out of pages."

The dripping of the rain went on alone.

~~