An: The briefly mentioned Elsie is from TangerineFields' amazing if abandoned Irrefutable Evidence. Sirius and Remus, naturally, belong to J.K. Rowling. The sadness and rage? Well, I'm afraid that's all mine. Enjoy.

Perhaps

Most days he didn't understand how he got out of bed. As soon as his eyes opened, there was a crushing sadness that pressed down on his chest like a millstone. And when he'd realised he'd ended up on Sirius' side of the bed again, it was almost more than he could bear.

By the time he made it to work, the fug of melancholy had utterly engulfed him, hanging over his head like a personal storm cloud. And like a storm he had flashes of anger, striking without warning, so that the slightest thing would anger him. Dropping a book at work, Elsie asking if he was okay, burning toast. All of these and more would lead to an outburst of swearing that turned the air positively aquamarine.

He thought he ought to get help. Surely it wasn't normal to walk around with so much rage and sadness. But where could he go? There were no support groups; no meetings for people whose lovers turned out to be cold blooded killers and basically murdered their best friends. Apparently, it didn't happen that often. Funny that.

Gallows humour was possibly the only thing keeping him sane, if this feeling of tearing in two could be called sanity. That and the fact that every time someone spat at him, screamed at him, attacked him, the hurt came out a little bit more. With each bruise, both emotional and physical, from someone he didn't know, the pain leaked away a little more. In the end, he went looking for it; went deliberately looking for the men who would scream at him for what Sirius had done, the women who would who would slap and scratch and bite because of what Sirius had done. And eventually, oh eventually, the pain trickled away, leaving him empty on the inside. It was only when he was numb, when he was hollow and void, that he wondered if perhaps, just perhaps, the pain had been better.