Depollute Me (Pretty Baby)
Sirius
Tequila. Cranberry. No—wait. Gin.
Shit.
Triple sec? That’s not right.
Vodka… something. Splash of something.
What was it?
Why can’t I—?
Gin. Tonic. Lime?
No—orange. It’s orange with the—
No, that’s a twist—not a wedge—
His hands moved faster than his brain, but not in the good way. Not the graceful, god-tier way he was used to—more like a puppet mid-tangle, all jerky limbs and wrong strings. He poured the wrong bottle, then the right one, then the wrong one again.
The bar smelled like cologne and sugar and sweat and something lemon-slick and synthetic, like cleaner trying too hard. Sirius hated that he could tell the difference between a Friday and a Tuesday by scent alone—Fridays were louder. Greasier. Filled with people ordering drinks they couldn’t pronounce because it made them feel less basic.
He should’ve been in his element.
He usually was—Friday nights were his stage, his altar, his goddamn battlefield. He could sling drinks and wink and dodge hands that lingered too long without ever missing a beat. He could read lips across the room, clock who was going to vomit before they knew it themselves, spin out daiquiris with one hand and tequila shots with the other. It was what he was good at. Fast hands, fast mouth. Smile sharp enough to get away with murder.
But tonight, everything was off.
His fingers were slick with something—lemon, maybe, or sugar syrup—he kept missing the edge of the shaker. The ice scoop was sticking. Someone was shouting for another round of espresso martinis but their voice sounded like it was underwater. The music throbbed too loud, off-beat from the pulse behind his teeth. Every light was too bright. Every sound came in wrong. Flat where it should be sharp. Sharp where it should fade.
“Sirius.” Juniper’s voice sliced through the buzz, low and clipped. “You good?”
He blinked. He was holding the wrong bottle. Vermouth instead of gin. Or maybe both. He set them down, turned like nothing happened.
“I’m fine.”
“You just poured a negroni into a pint glass.”
He shrugged. “Customer’s got taste. Upgrading their life.”
“Sirius.”
“What?”
But she was already moving, sliding past him to fix it herself, giving him that look—the one she used when Wilson got passive-aggressive with customers or when a girl tried to pay in cash and coke. She didn’t say anything else.
The rush hit hard around 10:15. Bodies stacked two deep at the bar. Voices rising. Everyone wanted their drink five minutes ago and their flirting returned immediately. Sirius tried to sink into it like he always did. Let the noise carry him. Let his hands do the thinking.
But his body wasn’t cooperating.
He reached for the shaker and knocked the strainer to the floor. Reached for the tongs and dropped a lime wedge on the sleeve of his shirt. His hands kept shaking the wrong thing—tin instead of glass, juice instead of soda. He went to crack an egg white into a sour and crushed it slightly too hard, the shell collapsing into his fingers like wet paper. He cursed under his breath, tossing the whole thing into the bin. No one noticed. Or maybe they did and just didn’t care.
His stomach was churning now.
The bottles weren’t where they were supposed to be. The garnishes looked wrong. His skin itched. Not like a rash—like it didn’t fit.
“Sirius,” Juniper said again, closer now, a little sharper. “Seriously, are you—”
“I’m fine,” he snapped, too loud, and then—crash.
Glass hit the floor.
He didn’t remember dropping it. Didn’t even feel it until the sharp kiss of pain, and by then he was already staring down at the mess, red blooming into the pool of gin like an ink drop spreading through water.
“Shit—fuck—” He stepped back, but the heel of his boot slipped. Juniper was already there, grabbing his arm.
“Go. Go to the back.”
“I’ve got it—”
“Sirius. Go!”
Her voice left no room.
So he did. Out of habit, not agreement. Back through the swing door into the narrow hallway, into the staff room with its single plastic chair and busted vending machine. He sat. Or maybe fell. He couldn’t tell.
The noise didn’t leave him.
It echoed—too big for the space, slamming around his head like a bottle in a dryer. His hand throbbed, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was his thoughts. Fast. Faster. Stacking. Collapsing.
How long had he been slipping? Was it the pills? The drink? The sketch? The way Remus had looked at him, touched him, let him in just enough to ruin him?
Was he too much again? Had he said something wrong? Was he bleeding or just imagining it?
Why couldn’t he just get a grip?
His knee bounced once, twice, uncontrollably. He tried to stop it. His fingers twitched. He hated how cold they were. He was sweating, but he was freezing. And everything felt off, like he’d stepped into his body a few seconds too late and missed the landing.
The light flickered. His hand hurt. The noise in his head was louder than the music outside.
He didn’t realize Juniper had followed him until her hand was on his shoulder.
“Shit,” she whispered, kneeling down. “Sirius. You’re—shit. Okay. You’re alright. You’re okay, yeah? I’m gonna call someone, alright?”
He wanted to tell her no. Wanted to pretend. But his mouth didn’t work the way it should, and something in her face told him she wasn’t asking.
She pulled her phone out and turned away. Whispered into the line, voice fast and tight.
He caught one word: “James.”
God.
Of course.
He didn’t need to be ruining James’s night, dragging him out to play chauffeur like Sirius was some brat caught sneaking out and getting too drunk at a house party. He didn’t need to be the problem again.
But he was fucked up, and the room was melting at the corners. Everything pulsed. Everything bled. And the only thing in his head—pinwheeling slow and sickly—was the color amber.
Amber with swirls of green, flecks of brown
Sirius slumped against the back wall, legs loose in front of him, his weight balanced unevenly on an empty crate. The plastic bit into his thighs, but he could hardly feel it. The pill had taken hold—thick and glazy, like syrup poured slow through his veins. The kind that didn’t hit with euphoria, just… stillness. The kind that softened everything except the thoughts.
But he couldn’t sit still. Didn’t want to. His mind was begging for motion. He needed a cigarette. And he couldn’t smoke in here, so he started to stand. Braced a palm against the wall and shoved upward, his legs slow to obey. It was like his limbs and his brain were locked in a stalemate—one flickering, the other lagging behind.
“Fucking useless,” he muttered at them, dragging one foot in front of the other like it owed him something.
He was halfway to the door, just about reaching for the exit handle, when Juniper’s voice rang sharp behind him.
“Oi! Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
She sounded pissed. She was holding a bottle of water and a damp flannel, storming toward him like someone who hadn’t planned on playing babysitter tonight.
“For a smoke, Junie. What’s it look like?” he slurred, not bothering to hide it.
His brain was still telling him to fight her, but the rest of him had nothing left. So she got her way—grabbing his arm, guiding him back, lowering him like dead weight toward the crate.
He damn near missed it.
His knees buckled, and he dropped hard, half-laughing, half-wincing. His head rolled back, and he let it, the muscles in his neck giving up the task of support.
“You’re on a mad one, aren’t you,” Juniper sighed, wiping his hair gently off his forehead, eyes scanning his face like she was counting the damage.
“Way up, darling,” Sirius murmured, lips barely curling. The flirt in his tone was threadbare—more reflex than intention.
“Fuck, you’re bleeding all over yourself! Give me your hand—here, grip this. No, tighter, Sirius! You’ve got to stop the bleeding.” Her voice was rising now, frustration edged with panic. “Fuck. I’ve got to get back out there.”
She looked toward the swing door, biting the inside of her cheek.
“Just stay here until James gets here!!” she barked, already halfway gone.
And then she was.
The water bottle sat untouched by his boot. The flannel was pressed between his fingers, but his grip had gone lazy. Somewhere inside, Sirius felt it—that pang of guilt, sharp and private. Not because Juniper couldn’t handle the floor—she was nails and spit and smarter than half the blokes who worked there. But because she shouldn’t have to do it without him.
Why did he always make things harder?
Why did he only think of himself after it was too late?
He just wanted quiet.
Just wanted his mind to shut the fuck up.
He must’ve passed out—drifted, maybe, or fallen into that soft, slow place between the pulse in his temples and the sterile buzz of the backroom light—but when he opened his eyes again, James was there.
Crouched in close, towering in that familiar way that should’ve felt steadying but only made Sirius feel smaller. His best friend’s face was too clear, too near, that faint crease etched deep between his brows, the one Sirius had only ever seen in moments of real, helpless worry. Not pub-fight worry. Not forgot-your-birthday-and-the-cake’s-on-fire worry. But real worry. Quiet and low, like it had taken root.
James didn’t come in hot. He came with silence and open hands, steady and careful, like someone approaching a wounded animal that might bite. And somehow that made it worse. That awful, unbearable gentleness.
Sirius didn’t deserve him. Probably never had.
“Hey, Jame-o,” he murmured, throat dry and voice barely working. He squinted, blinking as if James might sharpen into focus. “You alright? When’d you get a twin?”
“Dammit, Sirius.” The relief in James’s voice was quiet but palpable, his hands already reaching, already scanning for damage. “Can you stand? We’ve got to get you to a hospital. Your hand—”
That word— hospital —cut through the fog like broken glass, jolting something raw and instinctive awake.
“No,” Sirius gasped, sharper than he intended, latching onto the front of James’s shirt like it was the only solid thing left in the room. “No hospital. Please.”
His fingers were trembling so hard they barely obeyed, but he twisted the fabric tight, clung like it mattered, like James might disappear too if he let go. His body was sluggish, uncooperative—but the panic moved fast.
James didn’t argue. He didn’t sigh. He didn’t roll his eyes like anyone else might’ve. He just nodded once, voice even and easy.
“Alright. No hospital. But you’ve got to help me here. Let’s get you home, yeah?”
He slipped an arm around Sirius’s waist and pulled him upright, strong and practiced.
James got him out the back without drawing attention, loaded him into the car with clinical efficiency, handed him a plastic bag like it wasn’t the first time they’d done this.
“If you chuck up in my car,” James muttered, trying for lightness, “I’ll filet you alive.”
“Cheers,” Sirius mumbled, half-folded over himself, the seatbelt cutting awkwardly across his chest.
The ride was short—five minutes at most—but it felt longer. The city outside the window was a blur of lights and shadows, all warped by the way his stomach pitched with every turn. He focused on the yellow glow of streetlamps as they flicked past, trying not to let the bile rise, gripping the door handle like it might hold him together.
By the time they reached the flat, James had already shifted into nurse mode. He didn’t ask questions yet. Just got Sirius inside, out of his coat, onto the couch. He disappeared and reappeared with antiseptic, cotton wool, and a torn piece of clean flannel, moving with the kind of calm precision that only came from experience.
Sirius didn’t fight him. Couldn’t, really. He was too far gone to muster protest. He just watched as James cleaned the cut—his touch light, efficient, methodical—then wrapped it neatly, carefully, without comment. They didn’t speak until it was done.
James sat back, elbows on his knees, gaze level and quiet.
“Wanna tell me what this is all about?” he asked, tone stripped of anything but worry.
Sirius let his head roll to the side, smiled thinly. “Just flew a bit too close to the sun.”
James exhaled, not laughing. “Don’t bullshit me, Sirius.”
“What do you want me to say?” Sirius muttered, though even that took effort. “I got fucked up. It happens.”
“No, it doesn’t—not like this. Not to you. You’ve been off all week. I’m getting that sick deja vu feeling again, and you know I trust it.”
Sirius sat up too fast. The room reeled sideways, floor pitching like a boat cutting through waves. “Oh come off it, don’t act like you’ve never gone past your limit.”
He wasn’t sure why the bitterness clung to his voice—maybe because it felt easier than letting the cracks show. But James didn’t back off. He never did.
“Is this about Regulus?”
The question landed like a punch to the chest. Sirius stopped breathing.
“ Don’t ,” he said, his voice gone taut. “Don’t bring him up.”
“You saw that advert with him, and you’ve been wild ever since. I’m not stupid, Sirius. I’m your best friend. You don’t have to say it, but at least let me—”
“I don’t want to talk about him!” It came out already laced with the threat of tears. He could feel it all surging up, too close to the surface.
He shoved himself upright again, determined to escape the conversation, escape that voice, escape that face . His foot clipped the corner of the coffee table as he moved and he went down, body meeting the floor in a graceless heap.
James was already there, trying to help him back up—but Sirius shoved at his hands, clumsy and shaking.
“Don’t—just leave me alone . Please.”
He scrubbed at his face with his sleeve, furious at himself for crying, for not being able to hold it together, for being exactly the kind of mess he swore he wouldn’t become again.
You’re weak. Pathetic. Always have been.
“You know I won’t do that,” James said quietly, like it was just a fact. Not even an argument—just something he knew in his bones.
Sirius let out a sound that wasn’t quite a sob and wasn’t quite a laugh. “Don’t make me talk about it. James, I can’t. ”
His voice cracked, sharp and helpless. The fight had bled out of him completely.
James didn’t push. He simply stepped forward and wrapped Sirius up in a hug—tight and anchoring, like scaffolding around something collapsing.
And Sirius didn’t mean to cling—but he did.
He didn’t have it in him to explain. Didn’t have the words, or the breath, or the stomach to face any of it. All he wanted was silence—the kind that meant he didn’t have to think anymore.
James must’ve seen it—must’ve read the tremble beneath Sirius’ skin, the plea tucked behind his silence—because he let it go.
He guided him to bed like ritual, like muscle memory: paracetamol pressed into his palm, water set gently on the nightstand.
Sirius didn’t know how someone stayed like that. How James kept showing up, again and again, when Sirius had given him every exit, every reason to walk away.
But the thought drifted, never rooted. It rose for a moment—like breath held too long—then slipped back under before it could ache.
Because the moment his head hit the pillow, the pull came—low and certain, like gravity rewritten.
And this time, Sirius didn’t fight it.
He let the dark take him gently, like it had been waiting all night.
***
James must think Sirius is thick.
Because if he genuinely believed Remus just happened to pop by on a random morning, then he clearly had no idea who he was dealing with. Sirius might’ve been fucked sideways last night, but he wasn’t brain-dead.
There’s a knock at the door just after ten. Too early for deliveries, too confident to be a neighbor, and Sirius already knows. He doesn’t even have to open it to picture the look waiting on the other side.
Still, when he swings it open—hair an untamed halo, shirt wrinkled halfway to hell—he has to squint, because of course it’s him. Amber eyes, honey curls. And that maddeningly calm expression like he hasn’t come to supervise a small disaster.
“Morning, sunshine,” Remus says, smiling like it’s a private joke.
Sirius narrows his eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“Coming to pick you up.”
“Right,” Sirius drawls. “Because you just woke up this morning and thought, ‘You know what I fancy? A little social call to the flat of the completely unstable bartender.’”
Remus raises a brow. “Are you going to let me in, or are we doing this in the hallway?”
Sirius mutters something obscene under his breath and steps aside, sweeping an arm in a mocking gesture. “Behold: Chateau de Black. Wipe your feet. Mind the broken dreams.”
Remus walks in like he’s done it a hundred times before, and maybe he has in other universes—ones where Sirius isn’t fraying at the edges and clinging to charm like it’s armor. He doesn’t comment on the faint scent of antiseptic still clinging to the living room, or the fact that Sirius looks like he barely slept. He just turns once he’s inside, hands in his jacket pockets, gaze fixed.
Sirius folds his arms across his chest, stubborn to the last. “Let me guess. James put you up to this.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. You think James had to beg me to check on you?” Remus’ voice is light, but something flickers underneath. “You weren’t answering your phone.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Sirius snaps, too sharp. “God forbid a bloke gets a little fucked up these days—suddenly it’s a national fucking crisis.”
Remus tilts his head. “That what you think last night was? Just a little fun gone sideways?”
“I’m not in the mood for brunch and life-affirming chats, thanks.”
Sirius barely bothered to look up as he said it, voice scratchy, stretched thin with sleep and whatever lingering chemical cocktail still hadn’t fully left his system. His head throbbed with that distant, post-crash pulse—the kind that came not from a hangover but from being entirely wrung out. Nervous system short-circuited. Every nerve-ending like an exposed wire.
But Remus wasn’t interested in sympathy or softness, apparently.
“Get dressed,” he said instead, already halfway to the kitchen like the conversation had been scheduled, rehearsed, and summarily concluded.
“I’m not going anywhere before 10 a.m., mate,” Sirius called after him, reaching blindly toward the counter for his pack of cigarettes—his only goddamn peace offering this morning. A small mercy. A distraction. Something to quiet the static in his head.
But Remus had moved faster. He snatched the pack and held it aloft, just out of reach.
Sirius narrowed his eyes. “Oh, nice one. Real mature. Using your height for evil? Hell is hot, Lupin.”
Remus laughed, light and maddeningly effortless, stretching his arm higher as Sirius attempted to swipe the pack back and failed miserably. “If you ever want to see these again, go get dressed.”
“Marlboro ransom is a new low,” Sirius grumbled, glaring at him, but the fight wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Not when Remus was grinning like that, like the whole world hadn’t just collapsed twenty-four hours ago.
“Just go! Hurry up or we’ll miss the train!”
Sirius blinked. “Hang on. Train?”
“Less talking, more dressing,” Remus sang, inching toward the sink. “Or the Marlboro gets it.”
And then—fucking hell—he held the pack dramatically over a mug still half-full of this morning’s tea. Probably James’s. Possibly Peter’s. It was lukewarm, cloudy, brown as dishwater and twice as depressing.
“You wouldn’t,” Sirius warned.
Remus raised an eyebrow. “Try me.”
Sirius cursed under his breath and turned toward the hallway, dragging his feet like a child sent to fetch shoes he didn’t want to wear. “You know I’ve got a shift later, right?” he tossed back, one last lifeline, even if it was fraying at the ends.
Not that the idea of spending a day with Remus didn’t make his stomach flip like a broken vending machine. But that was the problem. It flipped too hard. Too fast. He didn’t trust himself—not fully, not yet. He was good at performing. God-tier, even. But he knew how fragile that mask was when it was Remus doing the watching. When it was Remus who might see the seams, the splinters, the mess beneath.
James was one thing. James had met Sirius at his worst—had picked him off bathroom floors and pulled needles out of his hands and helped stitch him back together with nothing but a sports wrap and stupid jokes. But Remus still had an idea of him. An image. Something clean around the edges. And Sirius wasn’t ready to watch that image shatter.
“No you don’t,” Remus called casually from the kitchen. “James already spoke to Juniper. Juniper spoke to your boss. Apparently some bloke named Wilson is covering for you.”
Sirius recoiled like he’d been slapped. “Bloody Wilson ? The bar’s going to be in shambles without me!”
“I’m sure The Wand and Sickle will survive one shift without the great and talented Sirius Black,” Remus said, appearing at the end of the hall, the smirk in his voice fully audible. Then, just to really twist the knife, he added, “Now move it.”
Sirius hesitated. For a second, he seriously considered locking himself in his bedroom and hiding under the duvet until this day—this entire month—was over. But Remus was walking toward him now, hands planted firmly on his back, shoving him toward his bedroom door with quiet determination.
If he wasn’t so focused on spiraling, Sirius might’ve melted on the spot from the sheer proximity. Might’ve turned to smoke and vanished.
“When did you lot even organise all this?” he muttered, pushing the door open like it had wronged him. “It’s 9 a.m. ”
“Yours is not to wonder why,” Remus said with a maddening grin. “’Tis to get dressed before we miss the bloody train.”
Eventually—after enough muttered curses to fill a chapel—Sirius gives in. Peels himself off the floor of resistance and tugs on his usual armor: worn-in jeans, the boots that have molded to the shape of him, a faded band tee, and his leather jacket that still smells faintly of last week’s cigarettes and last year’s mistakes. The sun’s already making a meal of the sky, August thick in the air, warm enough to go without—but he wears it anyway. Habit. Protection. Weight.
He doesn’t pack anything. Doesn’t ask where they’re going. Just slips his phone into his back pocket and—after a hard-won wrestle—retrieves his Marlboros from Remus with a glare and a muttered, “Arsehole.”
But that’s not all he brings.
He lies. Quietly. Thoughtlessly. Like muscle memory.
Tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket are three white pills. Small, smooth, and sharp with promise. Their presence is like a fever.
They burn through the lining of his coat Like they’re waiting for him to crack his mouth open and invite the sea in.
He tells himself they’re just a backup plan.
But the truth is, he doesn’t trust the day. Doesn’t trust himself. Not with Remus looking at him the way he does—like Sirius is something worth salvaging. He doesn’t know how to carry that kind of belief. It feels like standing too close to a mirror and seeing someone else’s face.
But at the same time, he doesn’t want to ruin that.
Because whatever image Remus has of him—whatever careful, golden version he’s built in that quiet, thoughtful head of his—Sirius knows the truth would taint it. He is not soft edges and second chances. He’s not the boy you take to brunch or the sea. He’s the poison in the well. The crack in the paint. He’s rot dressed like charm.
He’s already ruined so many things—why not ruin this too?
So he says nothing.
Zips up his jacket. Lights a cigarette with shaking fingers.
And steps out the door with his secrets stitched into the lining, walking beside the boy who has no idea he’s carrying a storm.
***
The train smelled like old metal and coffee. Not good coffee—burnt, vending-machine stuff that lingered in the vents and settled in the fibers of the worn seats—but Sirius didn’t mind. It was the smell of movement. Of going somewhere. He liked the sway beneath their feet, the low mechanical lull that filled the silence between things people didn’t say. It almost passed for comfort. The kind of comfort that didn’t expect anything back. The kind you could lean into without being noticed.
They’d found two seats by the window. The kind that didn’t line up with the glass quite right, so if you sat straight, the view felt slightly off-kilter.
Sirius slouched anyway. Remus had taken the aisle, opened a battered book like it was part of his morning ritual—something old and spine-worn, its edges curled from water damage and time. The pages had underlines and notes in blue ink, looping and small, as if he’d been arguing with the text for years and still hadn’t made his final point.
He watched the way Remus’s hand adjusted the page before flipping it. The way his lashes flicked down, shadowing his cheekbones. The way he bit the inside of his lip just slightly when something made him think. It made Sirius feel weirdly full. Like too much light in a small room.
Around them, the carriage hummed with soft conversations and the occasional burst of laughter from a stag party a few rows back. Some uni girls with messy buns and iced coffees in reusable cups were playing cards on the foldout tray, mumbling inside jokes with tangled limbs and chipped nail polish. A baby wailed once and was quickly soothed. The announcements came too loud over the speaker—delayed service to Three Bridges, mind the gap, please take all belongings. The clatter of motion, the artificial calm of shared destination.
It made Sirius tingle. Not the crawling-out-of-his-skin way he’d felt the night before. More like his thoughts were expanding too fast for his skull. His brain was moving fast, faster than the world around him, and the friction of that difference made him want to scream or jump or laugh or cry or all of it at once.
He tried to sit still. Honestly, he did.
He crossed his leg. Then uncrossed it. Let his knee bounce and then forced it flat. Peeled the edge of his train ticket into curls with his thumbnail until it looked like confetti. He stared out the window, forehead pressed to the glass, watching the countryside blur past like a painting melting in the sun.
He needed to talk just to remind himself he still had a voice.
“You know I’ve never been on a train sober?” he said suddenly, voice too bright. “Well—not not sober, just… you know. Not hungover. Not… off my tits. It’s weird. I don’t like how clear the windows are.”
Remus looked up, a wry kind of amusement flickering at the corners of his mouth. He didn’t close the book.
“They’re just windows.”
“Yeah, but they’re not foggy. You can see everything. The trees. The sheep. That weird guy in the hedge back there.”
“There was no guy.”
“There was, I swear. Looked like he was digging for treasure. Or maybe his dignity.”
Remus gave a low hum, turned another page, his smile more in his eyes than on his face.
Sirius shifted again. Leaned back. Sat forward. Pressed his elbow to the window ledge and tapped his fingers against his thigh in a rhythm he didn’t recognize. He reached into his coat, fingers finding the familiar crinkle of the Marlboro pack, the ridged edge of the lighter. Just checking. Just making sure.
He wasn’t in danger, exactly. But he wasn’t safe either. Not from the edge of his own thoughts. That slippery edge of being too awake and too tired at once.
“Funny, isn’t it? All of us crammed on this train—every single person with somewhere to be, and no one knows where the others are going,” he asked, turning toward Remus again. “Like we’re all just coexisting for these two hours. Strangers in motion. It’s sort of beautiful, isn’t it?”
Remus glanced up, the corner of his mouth twitching like he couldn’t quite decide whether to be amused or concerned. “You alright?”
“Never better,” Sirius said, too quickly. The grin that followed was just a bit too wide, a bit too bright, as if it could do the work of truth in its place.
He leaned his head against the window again. The cold pane steadied him, if only for a second.
“I don’t know how to swim,” he began again after a beat, voice low and strange like it had slipped out without permission.
Remus looked up properly this time. Closed his book halfway but didn’t speak.
“Everyone assumes I do,” Sirius went on, staring out at the trees flickering past. “Because of the whole—y’know—posh school, boat club bullshit. But I used to fake stomach aches whenever the pool came up. Even lied on the forms. Never learned. Never wanted to. Couldn’t stand the feeling of water in my ears. That sound—the echo. Like you’re inside your own head with no way out.”
He exhaled, slow and shaky, like the air had been trapped too long.
“Sometimes I think I’d be shit at drowning too. Like I’d thrash too much and get in the way of it. Or just float stubbornly and never sink like I’m supposed to.”
Remus didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile. He just looked at him—eyes quiet and amber and impossibly present—and Sirius couldn’t tell if that made it better or worse.
“You’re not supposed to sink,” Remus said softly.
Sirius blinked at that. His throat clicked. He couldn’t tell if it was the motion of the train or something else.
He sat forward again, restless. Elbows on knees, rubbing his palms together like he could burn off the twitchiness if he just moved fast enough. His mind was still sprinting, skipping ahead of him, thought to thought like stones skipping water—no time to sink, no time to stop.
He could feel his mind fraying—like old wallpaper peeling at the corners, the glue not holding like it used to. He needed to keep talking or the whole façade would unravel. Needed the distraction of sound, of motion, of anything other than the persistent crawl in his veins.
“So what have you got planned anyway?” He was trying to engage Remus, without seeming to obvious. “I never go to Brighton.”
“You’ll see,” Remus said eventually, calm as ever. “There’s a whole day ahead. You don’t need to know all of it yet.”
“I mean, not that I’m complaining. Brighton sounds alright. Seaside and seagulls and overpriced chips. Maybe a fight with a man in a Speedo. I can vibe with that.”
He laughed and it echoed in the quiet of the train car. A kid a few rows ahead turned around, curious, blinking at him with that unfiltered judgment only children have. Sirius stuck out his tongue without thinking, because it felt like something he’d do, and he was clinging to anything that made him feel like himself.
Remus slid the book back into his bag, obviously resigned to the fact that he was not going to be getting any reading done, and gave Sirius that look. Not exactly critical but like he was trying to read weather patterns behind Sirius’ eyes.
“You always so talkative this early?” he asked, tone soft but pointed.
“I’m trying something new,” Sirius said, fingers already dancing on his thigh. “Reinvention. Enthusiastic Train Guy. Might start a blog. ‘Cigarettes and Coastal Towns: A Memoir of Spiraling with Style.’”
Remus huffed. “Catchy. Terrible, but catchy.”
Sirius grinned, then dropped it just as fast. He wasn’t fooling anyone. Especially not Remus.
Without a word, Remus reached into his bag again and pulled out two sketchpads—one nearly new, the other bent and half-unbound—and a roll-up case of pencils and markers. He unrolled the case neatly, like it was ritual, then slid one pad toward Sirius along with a stub of a pencil.
Sirius takes it, eyeing it warily. “What is this?”
“A distraction.”
He looked at the sketchpad like it was a practical joke. “You travel with sketchpads and art supplies everywhere you go?” He gave Remus a look, half-amused, half-incredulous. “And you call me a walking cliché.”
Remus only shrugged, already flipping open his own pad. “It works.”
“What, am I five now? You gonna pull out a juice box and a sticker chart next?”
“If I thought it would help,” Remus said, glancing up with the barest trace of a smirk, “maybe.”
Sirius gave him a look of withering disbelief, the kind reserved for people who dared to care too much. “You’re insufferable.”
“You’re kind of unbearable,” Remus replied, still not looking up.
And then he did. Just for a breath.
“Try it,” he said, voice gentler now. “Doesn’t have to be good. Doesn’t even have to make sense. Just draw. Channel whatever’s in your head. Put it somewhere.”
Sirius stared at him. At the soft insistence in his voice, the steadiness in his gaze. The way he said things without dressing them up, without trying to fix it—just offered it up like a hand in the dark.
“You think sketching some half-arsed stick figure’s gonna stop me from going nuclear?” He tapped the side of his head.
“No,” Remus said. Quiet. Steady. “But it might help you channel it. Whatever it is.”
That stopped Sirius’ rambling. The way he said it. Like it was obvious. Like it wasn’t strange or weak to need a place to put it all. Like maybe Remus had been there before, too.
“I can’t draw for shit,” Sirius muttered, already dragging the pencil to the page despite himself.
“It’s not for anyone else. Doesn’t matter what it looks like. It’s the doing that counts.”
Sirius looked down at the sketchpad, then back up at Remus. He wanted to argue. To push back. But the words dissolved before they could form. There was something dangerous in that kind of permission. Something tender, too.
The train shifted beneath them, gears hissing as they slowed past another station. Around them, people murmured—phones buzzing, footsteps shuffling, the faint cry of a toddler somewhere up the carriage. The scent of cheap coffee and industrial soap clung to the air.
Sirius put pencil to paper. Drew a line. Then another. Didn’t care what it was. Just moved his hand.
It wasn’t quiet in his head, not exactly. But the noise changed texture and softened. He’d never felt that before.
***
Brighton greeted them with gulls screaming overhead and the sharp salt tang of sea air wrapping itself around their bones. The sky was a little overcast, pale and smudged like someone had dragged their thumb through blue paint. Still warm, though. Still buzzing with the heat of late summer and the constant low din of other people’s lives being lived.
They stepped out of the station and onto a street already thick with foot traffic—weekenders in sunglasses and linen shirts, locals weaving through them like practiced dancers. Sirius lit a cigarette with slightly shaking hands, letting the familiar burn anchor him. He’d survived the train. Managed to draw something that vaguely resembled a wolf, or a dog, or maybe a monster with a limp. And he hadn’t cracked. Not really.
Remus looked relaxed in a way Sirius rarely got to see—shoulders loose, eyes already scanning ahead like he had a mental map etched behind his gaze. There was something magnetic about it, the way he moved through cities like they owed him something gentle.
“You’ve got a plan,” Sirius said, flicking ash onto the curb as they made their way down Queen’s Road. “I can tell. You’ve got that look.”
“What look?”
“The one where your brain’s doing math in the background.”
Remus smiled, just a little. “Alright. First we walk the Lanes. Then lunch. Then maybe the beach? If you’re up for it.”
“You sound like a mum on holiday with her twins and a cooler full of egg salad.”
“I sound like someone keeping you preoccupied.”
Sirius didn’t aruge, already pulling out a cigarette to christen his presence in Brighton.
The Lanes were chaos in the most charming way—narrow streets full of twisting shopfronts, mismatched signage, windows cluttered with crystals, vintage jackets, handmade soaps, tarot decks, racks of sunglasses no one really needed. Sirius paused in front of a music shop with sun-faded posters in the window and muttered something about “the vinyl graveyard,” while Remus popped into a tiny bookstore and came out ten minutes later with a secondhand copy of On the Road and a tin badge shaped like a typewriter.
They didn’t talk much, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Remus let Sirius drift—let him be pulled by whatever glittered in the corners of his vision. There was something holy about that, Sirius thought. The way Remus made room for his chaos without trying to fix it. Just shadowed him, occasionally steering with a nudge or a look.
By the time they made it down to the front, the sea was a flat grey stretch edged in foam, the pebbled beach dotted with sprawled-out bodies and wind-blown chip wrappers. The pier loomed ahead, clotted with noise and lights, a little garish even in daylight.
“Tell me you brought cash,” Sirius said, squinting at the arcade signs.
Remus patted his jacket. “Twenty quid. You?”
“Enough to ruin my life in 2p machines. Let’s go.”
Sirius took off running, and he could hear Remus shout behind him.
They reached the pier, and something in him recalibrated.like his pulse catching a new rhythm.
The way his heart rate evened out—Engaged. The kind of overstimulation that kept the wrong thoughts from breaking through. Kids shrieked over sticky candyfloss, lovers kissed beneath greasy plastic signage, and every game machine blinked like a neon lighthouse calling him home.
Brighton moved like music—tempo shifting with each block, crescendoing at the pier and softening into quiet verses down the back alleys. It was a city that wore its skin loose. Laughter spilled out of pubs with cracked windows, seagulls screamed like drunk prophets from rooftops, and every storefront had the hunger of something trying to be remembered.
They wandered through it like boys in a dream too bright to last. Sirius walked ahead at first, leading them toward the record shops like a hound with a scent, the salt wind teasing his hair into knots.
The shop he chose was barely a room—more a closet stuffed with vinyl and ghosts. It smelled like melted plastic and the sighs of men who missed their youth. Sirius dropped to his knees in front of the crates like he was genuflecting, flipping through covers with hands reverent as prayer. Bootlegs, test pressings, jackets warped by time. Each one a doorway to someplace louder.
“This,” he breathed, holding up a Japanese pressing of Raw Power , “is the closest I’ve ever come to a spiritual awakening.”
Remus hummed. “You said that about the first time you got high in a cemetery.”
Sirius grinned over his shoulder. “Exactly.”
He didn’t buy much—just one record he already owned, because the sleeve was different. Because it felt like something he might want to hand to Remus one day and say here, this is how I felt when I first heard your voice .
Back on the street, they moved slower. Sirius had a paper bag tucked under his arm like a secret. Remus had a faint smile tucked under his mouth like a promise. They didn’t talk. The silence between them had stopped being awkward somewhere around the third record bin.
They turned down a narrow lane, the noise of the crowds dimming like someone had shut a door behind them. Remus led them to a crooked little antique shop wedged between a psychic’s storefront and a place selling vegan candles shaped like anatomical hearts.
Inside, it was dim and dense with the scent of linseed oil, dust, and something fainter—like old lemon soap or dried roses. Time felt warped here. The walls leaned, the floor creaked in protest, and every surface was cluttered with forgotten beauty: gilt frames, tarnished brass, sketches in cracked glass.
Remus slowed, like his body remembered the place even if he’d never been. He drifted toward a case of watercolors, fingers ghosting over the frame of a landscape the color of memory.
Sirius tried to follow. Really, he did.
But the air felt heavy. Like it knew something. Like it saw right through him.
The itch started somewhere in his jaw, crawled down his throat. His thoughts were too loud again—clashing cymbals with no rhythm. He shoved a hand into his coat pocket, fingers rolling each pill like they were rosary beads.
It wasn’t for fun. It wasn’t for high. It was just… buffer. Just something to put distance between now and too much. A little veil of fog to walk through. A breath between heartbeats.
Remus hadn’t turned. He was standing in front of a sketch of a boy on a fire escape, the whole thing done in smudged charcoal. He looked like he belonged inside it.
Sirius stood beside him, pulse slowing, bones quieting, gaze slipping sideways.
He didn’t see the art. Not really. But he watched the way Remus leaned in to read the penciled signature at the bottom. The way he tilted his head like he was listening for the paper to speak.
Sirius’ limbs were starting to hum with that first wave of cotton-soft calm. Not real calm. Not healthy. Just space. Distance. The kind of stillness you rent, not own.
“You find something good?” he asked, voice lower than before, worn in the way his boots were—creased and a bit ruined.
Remus looked at him then. Eyes warm. Mouth unreadable. “Everything in here feels like it’s waiting to be touched again.”
Sirius’ eyelids felt heavy, something in his throat catching.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, it does.”
And for a moment—just a breath, just long enough for the pill to start working—he felt almost like something untouched too.
Though his mind had settled into something quieter, the guilt crawled beneath it—slow, relentless, like water finding every crack in the foundation. Every time Remus turned toward him, even just to say something simple, Sirius felt it coil tighter.
I’m lying to you, and you don’t even know it. I’m high as a kite right now.
It wasn’t a dramatic kind of shame. There was no siren, no fire. Just a dull, persistent ache he couldn’t shake—like walking on a twisted ankle, pretending nothing hurt.
Because the truth was, Remus didn’t know he was standing beside someone counterfeit. Someone who’d folded halfway through the day and slipped a pill behind his teeth like it was nothing. Like it was survival.
And it was.
It wasn’t about chasing a high. It wasn’t euphoria. It was insulation. Just enough space to make it through without unraveling. Just enough silence between thoughts to pass for fine.
But it felt like theft.
Like he’d stolen this version of himself—the one Remus got to see—out from under the real one. The one who couldn’t make it through a train ride without shaking. The one who couldn’t bear the way kindness made him want to confess everything.
He wanted to be better.
He wanted to be worth the effort Remus was making.
Because despite everything Remus had said at the studio—about not needing him to have it all together—Sirius couldn’t believe it. Not deep down.
So he played the part. Laughed in the right places. Tucked the truth beneath his jacket with the receipt and the vinyl sleeve. And he told himself it wasn’t hurting anyone. That it was just for today.
Even if the whole time, he was thinking:
You have no idea what I’ve done to make you think I’m okay .
And maybe that was the worst of it.
That he wanted someone to see him—
but never gave them the full picture.
They didn’t realize how hungry they were until they were halfway down the pier, past the arcade and the blinking lights and the kids still sticky from ice cream. Sirius stopped short near the chip stand, blinking like he’d just remembered he had a stomach. Remus only raised a brow and nodded toward a nearby menu board, the kind that boasted too many fonts and too many items but still somehow felt like comfort.
It wasn’t long before they were juggling wrapped chip cones, a portion of battered cod to share, and two canned lemonades with the condensation already slicking their hands.
The seating area was full—picnic benches occupied by squawking gulls and half-tanned tourists—so Sirius hesitated just long enough to say, “Can we not—like, eat there?” He jerked his chin toward the crowded space, his face tightening in that way it always did when too many people, too many voices, too much air pressed in at once.
Remus didn’t question it. Just tilted his head toward the steps. “Beach?”
“Yeah,” Sirius said, voice low with something like relief.
They picked their way down to the sand, boots sloughing over loose pebbles, waves washing close and retreating just before their toes. Remus chose a spot near the slope, where the shore curved gently like a sigh. He peeled off his jacket and sat down cross-legged, already unwrapping the chips, while Sirius hovered a moment before following, settling beside him with that same practiced elegance he brought to everything—except now it was softened by salt and hunger and the proximity of someone he didn’t have to perform for.
The food was blessedly hot, the salt stinging their tongues just right. Remus passed him the lemonade without a word, and Sirius drank gratefully, then finally started eating.
Quiet settled. The kind that was companionable. That left room for breathing, chewing, watching the gulls bicker over crumbs farther down the beach.
But Remus kept glancing sideways at him. Not obviously. Just every few beats. And eventually, Sirius felt the weight of it—turned slightly, chip halfway to his mouth, and caught him looking.
“What?” he asked, mouth quirking.
Remus shrugged. “You just got quiet all of a sudden.”
Sirius blinked, surprised. “Did I?”
Remus nodded, brushing a few grains of salt from his knee. “Penny for your thoughts?”
And he said it lightly—cheeky, almost—but Sirius saw the real thing in his eyes. The sincerity beneath the smile. The kind of patience that didn’t ask for confessions, but waited for them anyway.
Sirius looked down at his hands. Picked at the battered crust of the cod. He could feel the question rising. It had been there since London. Since the ad in the shop window. Since the perfect spine of Regulus Black plastered in ink—poised mid-leap with his arms open to the air.
“Did you really mean what you said?” Sirius asked, not looking up. “About… being willing to listen. If I talked.”
Remus didn’t even pause. “Of course, Sirius. I’ve been told I give great advice. Might’ve even been compared to Confucius, once or twice.”
It was a small joke—a nod to the studio—but it landed like a hand on his shoulder. Not heavy. Just there.
And Sirius felt it then—that urge. The pull. Not to perform. Not to break. But to explain something. To put words to the ache that had nested in his ribs since he was seventeen.
“I have a little brother,” he said softly. And it was like something cracked open.
“I saw him,” Sirius said suddenly. “A few days ago. Not in person. Just… in town. I was with James and Lily, and there was this advert in the shop window. For Swan Lake. There he was. All dolled up in black and silver. Poster boy for the bloody Royal Ballet.”
He laughed, but there was no humor in it. Just disbelief. Just that stunned, aching admiration that felt like a slap.
Remus stayed quiet.
“I left home at seventeen,” Sirius said. “Walked out one night and never went back. That’s when I met James. When I started over, I guess. But Regulus… he didn’t come with me.”
He looked out at the water. The tide had crept closer while they talked. It rolled in slow, washing the beach in dim light, painting their boots with shadow.
“He stayed,” Sirius went on. “He stayed, and I left. That’s it. That’s the story. That’s the line between us.”
He didn’t say what they’d survived in that house. Didn’t paint the cold halls, the rules that bent like iron, the voices that taught you shame before they taught you love. He didn’t mention the slaps, the threats, the cold dinners eaten in silence. He didn’t need to.
“Reg was always better than me,” he said instead. “Sharper. Quieter. Could play the game. Smile on command. He was born to be perfect, and I was born to ruin things.”
His hands tightened around the lemonade can, metal creaking faintly.
“I thought I was doing the right thing, walking away. Getting out. But he didn’t follow. He didn’t even call. And I told myself it was fine. That he was safer there. That I’d just drag him down if he came with me. But then…”
He shook his head.
“Then I see him like that. On a fucking billboard. And it’s like—he’s made it. He’s everything they ever wanted. Everything I wasn’t. But I wasn’t there. I didn’t see him grow up. Didn’t see him dance. I missed everything.”
Remus hadn’t moved. He just sat with him, knees drawn up, eyes steady. He didn’t reach for him. Didn’t interrupt.
And that—God—that made it possible to keep talking.
“Sometimes I wonder,” Sirius said softly. “If he hates me. If he resents me for leaving him there. If he thinks I abandoned him.”
He laughed again. Bitter. “And sometimes I think I did.”
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The wind was picking up, tugging at his hair, biting cold at his fingertips. But it wasn’t the weather making his hands tremble.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” Sirius muttered, voice low, almost lost beneath the sound of waves curling up the beach.
The air had gone colder. Sky rinsed pale with early dusk. Their food sat half-eaten between them, forgotten now, wrappers crinkling in the breeze like they were trying to remind him of the world beyond his own head.
Remus didn’t answer right away. Just leaned back on his hands, legs stretched long in front of him, the cuffs of his jeans damp from the tide. He turned his face slightly toward the horizon, and when he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than before—carried more by understanding than sound.
“Because it’s still in you,” he said. “And it shouldn’t have to stay there alone.”
There was no tilt to his mouth, no raised brow, no angle at all—just that look. The one that held Sirius in place. The one that didn’t try to fix anything or reframe it into something survivable. It just made room.
Sirius exhaled, slow. His fingers dug into the sand beside him, cold grains packed under his nails. He hated that his throat felt tight. Hated more that he couldn’t look away.
“You still talk to him?” Remus asked, gently now.
He shook his head. “No. Not since I left.”
Remus nodded, watching him. “So go see him.”
It hit like an unexpected wave. Small, at first. But enough to knock him off balance.
He blinked. “What?”
“You saw him. On the billboard. You haven’t spoken in years. You miss him.” Remus turned toward him, brows raised just slightly. “So go.”
“As if it’s that easy,” Sirius scoffed, too fast, too sharp. The words landed hard between them. He reached for his lemonade, just to have something to do with his hands. “You make everything sound simple.”
“I don’t think it’s simple,” Remus said. “I think it matters.”
Sirius snorted, hollow. “It’s not like I can just walk in, tap on the glass, and say ‘hello again.’ It’s been years, Remus. We were kids. He’s—he’s a bloody star now. He’s poised and golden and perfect and everything I never let myself be.”
He let the words come all at once now, the pressure finally too much to keep inside. “And I left him. That’s what it comes down to. I walked away and he stayed behind. And I don’t even know if he’d want to see me again. I don’t even know if I deserve it.”
He dropped the can. It hit the pebbles with a soft thunk and rolled, catching a flash of dying light.
“I don’t think I have the courage to face him,” he added, quieter now. “I don’t know if I could stand there and see what he’s become and know that I missed it.”
For a moment, all he could hear was the wind moving across the beach and the hush of Remus shifting beside him.
Then: “So I’ll go with you.”
It wasn’t a dramatic offer. No sweeping music behind it. Just four words spoken like a promise, easy and steady and sure.
And Sirius, who had spent so long learning how to bear things alone, didn’t know what to do with it.
“This tattoo…the second one you did on me..” he takes his arm out of his leather jacket and traces his fingers featherlight against his skin. “It’s his star. Regulus.”
He looked over and Remus, cross-legged in the sand, arms resting loose over his knees, curls tousled by salt wind, reached over to ghost his fingers over the spot alongside his. An acknowledgment.
“That’s beautiful tribute Sirius. All the more reason why you should at least try to reconcile.”
Sirius had spent years building up walls tall enough that not even memory could reach him. He didn’t let people stand next to the ugliest parts of him. He didn’t ask for company when it hurt.
But this boy—this quiet, ridiculous boy who made bad jokes and painted galaxies and listened like it was an act of faith—wasn’t asking for permission.
He was offering something he didn’t even know how to name.
And for the first time in a very long while, Sirius didn’t feel like a storm someone had to outrun. He felt like someone who could be walked with. Like maybe he didn’t have to do it all alone.
They didn’t speak for a while after that. The tide was inching closer. Their food was cold. The light was leaving the sky in slow, syrupy streaks.
Sirius didn’t answer right away.
The gulls were quieter now. The tide had crept higher, swallowing their footprints. Far off, the arcade lights blinked against the dusk like a promise they weren’t ready to go back to. Somewhere behind them, the world kept spinning. But here—on this slope of sand and salt and half-eaten chips—it had gone still.
He glanced down at the shadows drawn out beside them. They’d stretched long in the evening light, edges blurred. You couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
And maybe that was the point.
He turned toward Remus, quiet and sure, and said—
“Okay.”
Because maybe it wasn’t courage that cracked things open. Maybe it was someone willing to go with you.
Even into the parts of your story you thought no one would touch.