Casey is aware of how Sirius perceives her.
She knows that there are some parts of her; some aspects to her that will never stop surprising or amusing Sirius, and that he is the only one who won't cringe at her being weird or uncouth. She knows that Sirius will always be the one to laugh at, or be concerned about the most unusual things about her, rather than cut her out, or run away from her. That there are very few things that keep her from being herself in front of her cousin. She knows. Because Sirius never turns away. He's always there. Through it all. There is nothing about Casey that can push Sirius away.
Or, that's what Sirius used to be, because if there is one thing Casey never expects from Sirius, it's fear. Fear of her. She certainly doesn't expect the open mistrust either. She gets it, though. Acting the way she has recently, it isn't exactly something that Sirius would have supported her for anyway, even if it weren't a perfect parallel to how she acted when they were young, trapped in their family. Which was why Casey lied to him in the first place.
With everything that's changed between them, and all that they've been through in the past year, graduating, going to war together, Reg joining the death eaters, all of it. Casey isn't sure where they are anymore. She feels like something has shattered between them. Not even cracked or broken, but shattered beyond repair. She wishes she could do something. Say something to Sirius to convince him that they are still family, but every time she wants to talk to him about it, the words turns into ash in her mouth.
So she just lets it go. She lets it be the way it is. She picks herself up from where she had fallen, and regroups with Sirius, although they don't fit together anymore.
Beggars, though, cannot be choosers, and Casey decides to be content with just having Sirius with her. Or at least, that's what she thinks she’s doing.
-----
Casey likes colours. She sees them everywhere. She's never been artistic or creative, but somehow, her mind colour codes the world, divides people and situations into hues and shades, and she doesn't know if she's insane, or if it's okay to function this way.
“Green.” Casey had said to her cousin years ago, when his father (her uncle, though she never thought of him that way) was in a rare variety of a good mood. She and Sirius were setting the table, while Orion was browsing through a book in the living room. The memory is in shades of black, white and grey, and Casey can remember the neat floral print on the china, and the scent of mahogany, but nothing about the room has changed since then. She can barely even remember Sirius’ face how it was back then, only his childish voice, raw and innocent.
“What's green?” Sirius asks her.
“Orion. He looks green today.” Casey replies simply.
“You mean he looks sick?”
“No,” Casey says. “He looks happy. He looks green.”
Sirius sighs. “You're such a doofus, Cassiopeia.”
Casey wrinkles her nose and frowns at Sirius. “You're an arse is what you are.”
Sirius snorts, and Casey can't stand the rudeness of her cousin.
It's a happy and a sad day, after that, but Casey is just pleased Sirius’ father is green.
Now that she thinks of it, she was so young when this happened, that she’s surprised she can remember at all. But this is just a vague, muted memory in her head. An echo of another time. It comes back to her when on one morning, she wakes up and realises that everything around her has lost its colour.
-----
The war rages on. Casey moves from safehouse to safehouse with the others. She and Sirius fight, Moody grumbles at them to be quiet, but he keeps going. And Casey and Sirius go on as well, with Casey trying to put her mind into what they're doing, but finding it difficult. She knows it was easier when the colours were there. It was also better when Sirius trusted her. And her heart sinks when she realises that Sirius may not trust her again. Probably never. And sometimes, when she thinks of this, she's angry.
Maybe the colours won't come back either.
Then she starts to get angry. Quite angry at Sirius. But it subsides in a moment, because she can't blame him for this. It was her. It was her, it was her, it was her… and she knows it and it makes her want to throw something, but she can't. She can't fix it. She's just ruining it… ruining it…
Ruining it.
-----
Casey's thoughts keep going in loops, and making everything hard for her. She and Sirius are staking out on an order mission, when Casey decides she can't take it anymore. She can't breathe. Her lungs won't expand, and she feels like she'll die if she doesn't run away. Away from her head.
The thick, musty air in the muggle motel room suffocates her. She takes one breath, then two, and decides she needs some air, if nothing else. Sirius is on the other bed, reading death eater correspondence letters, and Casey looks back at her own pile of work, and the brightness of the wand light hurts her eyes.
Casey stands up. “Going for a walk.” She says to Sirius.
Sirius doesn't even steal a glance at her. He just rubs at his temple and turns to a different letter. “Get coffee.” He says.
Casey nods in reply. Sirius doesn't see that. He just grumbles some and squints at the letter he's reading, and Casey shuts the door on her way out. She checks her wristwatch. It's half-past ten.
She walks and she walks, trying to get rid of the circles in her head. They won't go away. So she walks in circles, just like her thoughts. She realises how stupid she looks and laughs. She laughs maniacally into the night. The circles don't stop, though. But the thing that seems to be blocking her airway does clear out.
When she feels like she can breathe, she returns to the motel, only to realise that the night wasn't half as calm for Sirius as it was for her.
The air inside the room is chilly and dark and Sirius is up in his bed, eyes wide and mad. The moment Casey enters the room, asharp voice rings out. “Where were you?” Sirius asks her furiously.
Casey moves her lips once, twice. Her voice is hoarse when she speaks. “I was-”
“Why the hell couldn't you have told me where you're going? Or that you'd be gone half the bloody night? Do you realise that there's a fucking war going on out there? Death eaters crawling everywhere? You need to tell me these things, Casey I-” Sirius looks really hurt and pissed and worried when he loses his fight.
“I wasn't gone that long…” She says, “I wasn't-” Her eyes fall on the clock on the bedside cabinet. It reads three thirty-seven AM.
Sirius rakes a hand through his hair, he does it two more times. He does nothing more, says nothing more, before plonking down on his bed with a faltering sigh, and resting his head in his hands. “Casey,” he says, “Frosty…” he looks up,
eyes bright with sadness, and shakes his head. “Go to sleep.”
“Yeah,” Casey replies, “Yeah.” She brushes her teeth and lies down. However, she doesn't sleep. She just listens to Sirius snore all night, and wonders if he ever feels like his thoughts are in circles too.
-----
It happens again two weeks later, and this time, Casey's been walking for seven hours before returning to their safehouse, to Sirius. She forgets the coffee again. Sirius is having a panic attack when she gets back.
“I'm sorry,” She says, to Sirius’ anxious, manic face, after finally calming him down. “I didn't … I didn't know I was gone that long.”
“How- Casey, what are you talking about?”
“I don't-” Casey pushes her hair back, “I lost track of time.”
Sirius’ anger falters, as a shaky sigh escapes him. “Casey, what's wrong?”
“No, no, I'm okay.” Casey says, “I'm okay. Just… please…” she heads to her bed, “I need to sleep.”
Sirius looks at her with sleep-deprived eyes for a moment. “Okay.” He says. “Okay, but we talk. Once you're up.”
Casey nods, and slips into bed. Sirius doesn't sleep this time, and it's much harder to feign sleep for Casey, but she does it. She wonders, as she pulls her covers around her, as to why her legs don't hurt. She wonders how she didn't know that she'd been out seven hours.
She feels like cutting off her legs.
-----
It doesn't stop at just the two incidents after that, and every time, it starts with Casey feeling like she can't be in a safehouse, or at headquarters, and Sirius just stops with the frantic attitude after a while and lets Casey take her time. Casey does take her time, but sometimes, she doesn't know what she wants, because once she's out, out in the open, she just wants to get back to the order.
When she's with Sirius, she wants to go out and sort herself again. She feels like she's suffocating, and she chokes like she can't breathe. She feels like she'll die.
She wonders, vaguely, if death is the real option here after all.
-----
After Marlene's death, Casey doesn't get out of bed for two days. The order is at headquarters, and they drink themselves into a stupor before returning to bed after the fiasco at the ministry. It's the first night in many nights that Casey actually falls asleep, but when she wakes up the next day, her mind refuses to cooperate with his body.
She lays in her blankets, staring at the faded wallpaper, blinking away the headache from her hangover. She refuses food, and the others don't push, (to be honest Casey isn't sure if they're eating either.) And Casey lays there, thinking, thinking… And she doesn't want to think, and once again, she's choking on air, but she can't get her legs to work, and she's paralysed. Trapped.
She doesn't dare shut her eyes, for fear of her own dreams, but she doesn't move. And she wonders if she'll suffocate enough to die. If she’ll actually asphyxiate from this, but she realises she doesn't care if she does. Because, who knows, maybe it will all be better this way.
Sirius looks like he's at his wits' end on the second day, but he doesn't prod Casey, or ask her anything. He nods to whatever she says, or doesn't say, and there are lines on his face, and around his eyes, like he's worried. He and Remus talk in hushed voices.
Casey can't figure out why he worries, though. He should be happy that Casey is resting. Sirius should be happy because he deserves all the happiness that she wasn't able to give him.
-----
When Casey isn't choking on her own breath, she feels numb. It sits on her like a cloud, and the only thing that penetrates it is anger. Pure, raw anger. It's the only thing that makes her feel like she's still human.
Casey told Sirius about how she was angry, once. In the other war, when they were younger, the one between them and their families. Sirius asked her to push it down. Sirius told her it would drive her insane. So Casey listens to her cousin, and pushes it down. She feels the numbness cry out in a triumph of its own when it wins.
-----
Casey and James go on a mission by a lake, not long after their trip to the ministry, when she saw her family and Marlene died and everything fell to shit. Casey listens to 'Hey Jude' on a loop and doesn't talk to her best friend. He doesn't need to know what it felt like when she watched her family murder her girlfriend.
She almost doesn't get out of bed. Because she's tired. Too tired, and her bones, and fingers, and hair are tired.
Her soul is tired.
She wants to rest. Rest for a while. She wants to not be smothered. She wants to talk to Sirius. He would get it. But she can't, not without being pitied, or getting him angry, or it being awkward between them. But she doesn't want to see another morning, because she can't bear to stand the absence of her colours.
Casey coaxes herself to live without it, though. She watches Sirius win the order’s poker games and swig down whiskey, wondering how Sirius even keeps that game face on, after all this. Wondering if he knows that he looks like her father. Wondering how Sirius would react if he found a note next to her body.
She doesn't want Sirius to waste time and energy grieving for her. So she stows that thought away.
It does come back, though. It comes back during her mission by the lake.
It's Bellatrix, she thinks, who sends a stunning spell at Casey, flinging her into the water, as James works to push back the others on the other side of the lake. And Casey struggles to come up, to swim, when she feels the thought come back.
She fights. Beats her arms and legs. James frantically aims his wand, shooting spells erratically while trying to get away long enough to save her, and Casey fights one more time, when she thinks about what is happening. And she feels good about it.
The water makes her light. Takes away her weight. But she remembers how much heavier she is on Sirius. On James. On everyone. She’s gagging, and she feels soothing water surround her, sliding smoothly over her skin, as it pushes her lower.
And she is so tired.
Water crawls into her nostrils and she coughs, but she lets it in. It's cold, freezing, and she feels so nice, so calm.
She just wants to sleep.
Her throat spasms, but she swallows in the water. It tastes strange. Like elixir. Yes, that’s what it is, it's the slightly salty taste of sleeping potion. Relief washes over her. This is what she wants. This is what she wants.
Peace.
-----
“Moony I- I don't know what to do.”
A warm hand rests on Casey's forehead, and she welcomes it. Her head hurts. Her chest hurts. Her whole body feels frozen. A voice is talking somewhere in the distance; as though it's coming out of a muggle radio. Like Camille showed her years ago. Casey relaxes, and sighs, as she feels the stabilising heaviness of the gentle fingers that stroke at her hair.
“She almost died. James said she could have been… If she- If she was doing it on purpose, I swear-”
The voice breaks, and Casey doesn't know what the person is talking about, and she doesn't care. All she knows is that she feels warm, and much better than she has in years, and there's no weight on her shoulders, no blame, no hate, and…
Realization hits her. The voice. The hand.
“Sirius.”
The word is out of her lips before she can control it. Her throat is sandpaper and salt on a deep wound, sore and on fire. She doesn't know how she spoke at all.
“Frosty?”
The response is instantaneous. Sirius’ voice is desperate, and borders on tearful. “Frosty?” He repeats.
“Pads.”
“Yeah, Casey?”
“Padfoot.”
A twinge of impatience. “I'm here, Casey. What is it?”
No response comes, and Sirius’ hand comes down lower, skimming over Casey’s eyelids to shut them for her gently, and she gives in to sleep, the last thing she remembers mumbling being, “I'm so tired, Sirius. I'm so tired.”
-----
Casey's fever rises and sinks, a ship in the ocean, rocking through the crests and troughs on the waves. Sirius and the others are there with washcloths and potions, and the lines on Sirius’ face are deeper. Casey doesn't talk to him much, nothing more than their small talk anyway, and she knows that Sirius wants to know something else, but she doesn't even mention it, and he doesn't ask.
On the day that Casey can get to her feet without wobbling, Sirius watches her emerge from the bathroom in her black jeans and a clean t-shirt, and reaches for the doorknob. “Come on.” He says.
“Where?” Casey asks, frowning.
“We're seeing a healer.”
There is silence, and then Sirius explains himself. “There's something wrong here, Frosty. I don't know how to fix it... Please.” It's when Casey notices the red rims on her cousin's eyes, and her heart jumps. Sirius hasn't been doing well with this at all.
A healer, though? Casey can't. She can't. She doesn't want to sort this out. She needs something else. Not some healer who’ll just pity her and ask her questions that she doesn't want to answer. She needs all this pain to just go away.
She sighs, trying to sound nonchalant. “I'm all right, Pads.”
“No! You tried to… y- you.” Sirius can't even seem to get himself to say it.
She puts on a convincing facade of confusion and surprise. “You think I- bloody hell, I wasn't trying to kill myself, Padfoot,” She lies. “It was a mission going wrong, alright? It was just an accident. I'm okay.” She makes him catch her eyes. “Hey. I'll be okay.”
She's always been good at this. Lying, convincing, telling people what they want to hear in a way that makes it believable. Sirius searches her features for a lie.
Sirius believes her.
-----
Casey’s fever comes back. Everyone is confused, wondering why the potions haven't been working, James had taken to pacing her bedroom for hours until Lily finally ushered him away. The symptoms are the same, but everything about this round is worse, so much worse, and they don't know why. Casey wishes she could scrub herself clean from it all, but she can't. She hates how they all pity her.
She hates the hopelessness in Sirius’ eyes.
She is all alone, she realises. She is a monster, a murderer, a freak, and Sirius doesn't even want to be her family and he will leave some day and she's alone…
She chokes on air, and she wants to run away. Away from all this. All these people. She wants to run until her legs fall off. She wants to go to a cliff and scream; scream her lungs out, but she can't.
There's just one person who's never been unfair to her, who's always done everything he has, because of his fucked-up affection for Casey. There's just one person who's blind, so blind when it comes to Casey, and all because his heart is so big, and he’s so stupid for it.
“Sirius…”
Her cousin's name escapes her lips without her meaning to, and she clenches her fists, fighting back tears. She doesn't deserve family like this. She doesn't deserve the devotion or the faith or anything that her cousin gives her.
Nothing.
“Sirius.”
With that last thought everything around her falls into blackness, hopefully forever.
-----
There's a hand on her forehead when she wakes back up. It's like déjà vu, with the gentle fingers and the desperate voice, but this time, it's chanting something in Casey’s ear.
“I'm here, Frosty. I'm here. I'm here.”
It's Sirius. Of course it is. Casey tries to curl up, tries to face away from her cousin but she's too stiff, and it washes such helplessness over her, and she wants to push everything away, and then, again, she's feeling like she's being smothered, pitied, and she can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe, until…
“Hey hey hey, relax, Casey. Just breathe. Just breathe. You're alright.”
Sirius’ hand is on her shoulder. “Hey, Frosty.” he whispers again, soothingly, and Casey curls up some more because it's a hallucination.
This is not real. Not real.
“I'm here, Casey.” Sirius repeats from his previous chanting, a thumb moving against Casey’s temple. “I'm here. It's okay.”
“…No.”
“Casey,” Sirius sighs, and Casey shuts her eyes tight, so he won't have to look at the look of absolute pain on her cousin's, on her best friend's, face. Sirius is disappointed. Sirius doesn't have any faith left for her anymore. Casey has broken him in every way possible, and she is guilty, and she should be dead.
But she’s not.
“I’m here, Casey.” The weight on Casey’s bed shifts, and a warm hand encloses her own.
“I'm here,” Sirius repeats.
This time, Casey trusts him. Really and truly. Her fingers curl against Sirius’, but she lets go the next moment, because Sirius is pissed, and rightfully so, and Casey knows that her cousin doesn't want to associate with her right now. Sirius’ grip on her hand tightens, though, and she opens her eyes again, to see her cousin blinking rapidly at her. The lines under Sirius’ eyes are deeper, made more prominent by the dim light. He looks drained. Tired. Like he's given up.
“I'm sorry.” Casey whispers to him.
He shakes his head. “No, Frosty, no…” He hesitates, eyes growing sad, and he takes a deep breath. “Talk to me.”
This time, Casey is sure she's hallucinating. No one in their family, not once, has opened a discussion of emotion. She tries to turn away again, but Sirius squeezes her hand. “Casey.”
Despite herself, Casey snorts. “Since when do you talk?”
There is a pause. Then, surprisingly, Sirius replies, words forcing their way out of his mouth so quickly he seems surprised at himself. “Since you started going for walks and making me think you'd never come back. Since you got into bed one night and didn't get out for two fucking days. Since you tried to drown yourself. Since you told me you are angry, and the only thing you did was be angry, and nothing else. Since you stopped mumbling about your stupid colours at the randomest of times when you thought I couldn't hear you. Since… since…” Sirius’ breath shudders, and Casey looks at him, heart jumping when she finds her cousin's eyes wet.
“...Randomest isn't a word.” Casey says quietly.
Sirius doesn't reply, though. He just presses a fist to his mouth, as though he's controlling the urge to scream, and his shoulders hitch.
Casey blinks at him. “Pads.”
Sirius shakes his head, and a tear escapes his eye, trailing down onto his cheek. Casey feels something break inside of her, as her vision blurs. “Sirius.” She whispers, tears escaping down her temples, into her hair. “I'm so tired, Sirius.”
“I know.” Sirius replies. “I know. But we can't… you can't… you and J-James, and all of you. Casey…” He swipes his wrist across his eyes, shaking his head again, because he's not making sense, and he doesn't seem to be able to. He tries again. “Please t-talk to me. I'm fucked and I'm s-screwed, but I'll help. I always, t-try, Casey. Please.” he begs, face crumpling as he wipes a hand across it. “Why are you doing this?” he asks, simply, his eyes heartbreakingly honest when they peer into Casey’s.
Casey realizes, in that moment, that she has been selfish. She was burying herself in her own problems, thinking about herself, when Sirius was struggling just as much as she was. She forgot that they were all in this war together. Casey realizes how she's been feeling, either extremely angry, or empty, like she doesn't want anything to do with anything. Even with living her life. And if that's made her this miserable, it's done the same to Sirius. How has she never thought about that?
She's been so, so selfish.
Casey blinks more tears out of her eyes and sits up, wrapping her arms around Sirius and pressing her face into his shoulder.
“I'm sorry.” Casey whispers, choking on a building sob. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.”
“No,” Sirius tells her. “No, no.” His fingers wind around her hair, raking through them, before coming to rest on Casey's back, thumb rubbing circles against her shirt, and it feels like relief can finally wash over Casey. This is Sirius, this must be what family is, and Casey doesn't want to move for fear of waking up to this being a dream. She doesn't want to move because the world out there is cruel, and she won't have time to just rest against Sirius’ shoulder anymore, or be a child again after everything they've been through.
Casey shifts in Sirius’ hold. “I've been selfish.” She whispers, coughing, as more tears spill. “So bloody selfish.”
“You haven't, Frosty.”
“I'm sorry.”
“You don't have to be.”
“Sirius…”
“I'm here, Casey.”
-----
When Casey wakes up the next day, her head is resting on Sirius’ lap, and there's dried tears and drool on his jeans. Sirius is fast asleep, sitting in the same position that he had assumed all those hours ago, with one leg folded on the bed and the other dangling down, foot almost touching the carpet. His head lolls uncomfortably as his chin touches his chest, but his hand is still in Casey's hair, while the other one rests on her back, holding her against himself.
Casey doesn't move, though. She doesn't want to get out of here. She wants to stay in this moment, be a family for once, and let it all be the way it is, but she knows she can't do that. She's been stuck in one place too long. She's been here for months, and she can't let this take over. She needs to unfreeze, and as difficult as it's going to be, she knows she has a family to turn to, when it gets too hard.
She shuts her eyes again, sleep taking over her tired mind and body. When she wakes up the next time, Sirius is awake too, although he hasn't moved. His blue eyes meet Casey's, and they seem just a tad greener than usual. And the only sound that echoes around the room for five minutes afterwards is that of feeble, but genuine laughter, when Casey smiles up at him and mutters, “Green.”