red
“Send Red for an honesty post on what my muse dislikes/hates about yours.”
Hate James? Peter’s pretty sure the idea itself is impossible. But still…
There’s moments. Peter sags under Sirius’ weight against his shoulder, the laughter barked in his ears, firing off a biting comment concealed as a joke – or otherwise the four of them gathered after an Order meeting, somehow tense and exhausted all at once and the cruelty that comes then is thinly veiled and a nice little scapegoat in the way Peter folds up and takes it and lets Sirius say whatever he needs to make himself feel in control again. And James does nothing or James weakly laughs or James glances away the second Peter’s pained eyes look to his for support and James stares out the window or at the ceiling or the wall just long enough for Peter to give up hope. He does, quickly, because he’s learned: James’ll keep letting it happen. Peter doesn’t think hate but he thinks coward and suffers the guilt of the thought after and he doesn’t ask why because he knows the answer. There are things he does ask, silently,
Am I your project, am I your charity, do I make you feel better about yourself at the end of the day? Is it easier to let someone else love you so you don’t even have to try it on yourself, how long do you think I can keep it up?
Peter wants to beg James not to take him for granted, but he knows himself well enough to know that it doesn’t matter if he does or not. Where else does Peter have to go? And that trap of one-sided dependence is its own sort of violence he’s not quite sure how to get out of.
