#bitterhope

ch.1 ch.2 ch.3, ch.4, ch.5

The drive from where they'd just performed in Houston at NRG Stadium up to SoFi Stadium in San Diego was going to be a good twenty four hours of highways, concrete and boredom. Or maybe not. He had a gut feeling Mary wanted to talk about something. While Sirius' gut is not typically one to rely on, like that time he once smushed a sandwich with oily meats into a toaster thinking it was a good idea and had a very small, very eco-friendly house fire on his hands. Probably not thinking.

Not the current point though. The point is he's bored, which means he has The Munchies, in short he has to get someone to ask Kingsley to stop for breakfast. Point being he has to enter the dragon's nest.

Sirius carefully untangled himself from Mary slipping a pillow to replace his arm under her head. Then he quietly manoeuvres around Marlene's limbs hanging half on the bed with Dorcas and her other half on the floor. Sirius takes a couple steps past and squats down to Peter's bottom bunk. Sirius pokes at his face but Peter doesn't even stir. Then he starts to whisper.

"Hellooo," quiet as possible to not wake Minnie but his patience threshold when he's hangry is abominably low. "Hey!" He grumbles under his breath when Peter doesn't so much as twitch and starts to flick at Pete's chubby cheeks. "Hellooooo," when there's still no reaction Sirius whisper-shouts, "Hello!" accidentally flicking off Peter's hearing aid that he probably forgot to take out last night and scrambles to catch it. When Sirius turns back its to an unimpressed, freshly woken, grumpy Peter and he tries to play it off with an awkward grin. "Heh. Good morning, you lovely ray of sunshi-"

"What d'you want, Black?" he drags out in early morning irritation.

Sirius purses his lips to the side and mumbles, "Could you ask Kingsley to stop for breakfast?" Peter blinks, twice, stupendously at him then turns over and cocoons himself. Sirius drapes himself over Peter with murmurs of 'Please?' and 'I am your best friend.' and 'Don't you love me?'

Peter shoves the covers down from over his face and is immediately met with Sirius' ginormous puppy dog eyes. "And you can't ask him yourself because..?"

"Sometimes when I am bored I'll sit up front with Kingsley and ask him to make stops at gas stations so I can get slushies. He won't make stops for me anymore. Says I'm entitled and wasting valuable road time. Though that might also be because I dropped his slushie last time. In his lap. All irrelevant to my current situation of The Munchies. Pretty please, Blondie?" Sirius blinks in cartoon fashion as if that was helping him get what he wants.

"Mm. Lost your pretty privileges, have you?" Peter rolls out of bed groaning and face plants on the cold hardwood floors. You can see his chest rise with a deep breath before his heavy agonising sigh and mumble of, "I greatly dislike you."

Pete hauls himself up and immediately stumbles over Marlene's extended leg. Once he's stable he kicks her leg a bit muttering about how she sleeps like that american gas station blow up man they saw on their drive into Texas. He walks over her arm and head lying in the middle of the walkway and heads to the front of the bus. Peter opens the door to the driver's area to talk to Kingsley but instead of just saying what he needs Pete gets into the passenger seat.

Sirius face drops because he knows Pettigrew just went back to sleep and he won't be getting breakfast for another half hour. Splendid

★

By the time they park at a diner in some town in the middle of nowhere it's 9:27 and everyone is awake and alive if not dead on their feet. Sirius hops out the bus doors and proceeds to twist and turn his spine in every direction possible to get every satisfying crack. He carries Mary in a flowing yellow sundress on his back to the diner and Marlene speed walks to the doors of the diner with Dorcas in tow.

Sirius lowers her into the booth and once they're seated a waitress passes by to get them started on drinks and take their orders. Their lemonades reach the table and Mary taps Sirius and signals outside. "I want to talk to you about something." she says.

Sirius walks with her joint at the hip out the diner. "Hiccup still bothering you?" Mary looks confused but then he pokes her leg and she gets it. "Hm? Oh, no. Some days are better than others, it doesn't cooperate or it's uncomfortable, it depends. Or sometimes I just don't want to wear the leg. Free will, let the limbs breathe and all that jazz. No, um. I actually had something I wanted you to listen to." He looks sceptical but then she continues,

"Remember Lily Evans?" Mary tells him everything. The rumours, the denial, wednesday night hook-ups, lies, how angry it made her and how hard she'd tried to be it for Lily. That if she'd just been good enough, that she could help Lily through it and they'd work it out. And about how she's finally given up.

She didn't say any of it really, just handed him her headphones. Sirius looks from them to her confused, "I didn't think I'd be able to tell you. Not anything to do with you just that I feel so.. angry. And so worn. I can't even really say why I stuck around so long."

Obviously though, Sirius knew why she'd stuck around Lily Evans. Mary's not lying of course, she obviously can't understand why she stuck to Evans for so long. Why she stayed through all the kicks and punches, yelling and denial, unreliability and fickle love. Sirius sees why though; knows it was because she wanted to prove she could love someone no matter how aggravating it was or how difficult they made it; knows why she wanted to prove it.

He puts on the headphones and hears her familiar voice coming through the speakers. Everything Mary says in the song are axes hacking at his rotting pillars. He leans against the glass window of the diner and slides down till he hits the pavement and Mary follows in a pistol squat. Sirius holds a hand locked over his mouth as tears stream down his face and his lungs scrape themselves raw. The lyrics are rubbing salt in a very fresh wound and he hears Barty's voice echo in his mind

"You let me stay; you let me hurt you."

I hate that I let this drag on so long, now I hate myself

I hate that I let this drag on so long, you can go to hell

At the end of her primal scream on the demo, Sirius turns to face Mary who seems apologetic, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you." He's frozen for a second then drops his hand from his mouth and wraps himself around her tightly, gathering her up in his arms. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you," Sirius whispers with his voice hoarse. Mary huffs at him, "Looks like I wasn't much there for you either." She kisses his temple and utters, "I'm sorry. I really do love you, Sirius."

He sniffs and wipes his bleary eyes then wipes her tears too, "I love you more, Marianne,"

"To my credit though, I don't think you're a loser."

"No?"

Sirius stands and pulls her up after. "Nah, 'cause you're just a teenage dirtbag, baby~"

"Wow, okay. Wrap it up prince froggie. Get your pufferfish lips out of my personal space bubble. Your," Mary makes a circle with an open hand in his general direction. "..everything.. is insulting. Anyway, pancakes?"

"Pancakes."

Sirius stops them at the diner's glass door entrance. He slides the headphones down and off his neck, shakes them and asks, "Is that song released yet?" Mary shakes her head. "Then I have a wonderful idea."

She grins.

★

"No." 

guys i swear all typos will be fixed when my editor friend comes back from death guys i promise & that fire thing is actually true, i blew a fuse

Pandamary my beloved

i hope you can feel my whimsy, that makes me ridiculously happy