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Chapter Text

The bass thudded so loud it rattled the windowpanes of the two-story house, some sophomore’s older cousin’s place out near the woods, far enough that no one would call the cops. Somewhere between the garage and the kitchen, Sirius Black lost his friends.

Sixteen, half-drunk off some sickly sweet spiked punch, he drifted through the bodies—dancers, smokers, couples pressed into dark corners—and found himself on the back porch where a small group of older guys lounged around a glass table, a thick fog of smoke hanging over them.

They weren’t school guys. Not Hogwarts Prep or even Slytherin Tech. These were the city kids. The ones with calloused hands, tattoos hidden under sleeves, mouths that curled around every word like a challenge.

Sirius hovered by the doorframe, trying to look cool. He had that look, always had—dark hair, leather jacket, a born rebel—but something in his eyes always betrayed him. Always too wide, too uncertain.

One of them noticed. The ringleader. Shaved head. Slouched posture like he owned the world.

“You’re Black, yeah?” he asked, dragging his words like a cigarette. “From the big scary family.”

Sirius swallowed. “Yeah.”

“Reputation’s all bark, huh?” the guy said, holding out a joint, burning slow between his fingers. “Try it.”

Sirius hesitated.

He thought of Remus, probably somewhere inside arguing about books with Lily. Of James, who always had his back but could be too busy playing king of the world to notice when Sirius drifted too far. Of Peter, already puking in a bathroom somewhere.

He thought of his mother. Of her voice in his ear even when she wasn’t there.

You will never amount to anything. You are filth. Weak. Worthless.

He reached out.

The guy grinned, sharp teeth glinting in the porch light, and handed it over.

The smoke burned like hell going in, and Sirius coughed, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes as laughter erupted around him.

“Atta boy,” someone said, clapping him on the shoulder.

He did it again.

And then again.

He smiled. Pretended he liked it. Pretended it didn’t twist something inside him, that it didn’t make the noise in his head louder.

Later that night, lying half-asleep in someone’s basement on a stained mattress with a stranger passed out beside him, Sirius stared at the ceiling tiles. He could still hear his heartbeat in his throat, the buzz under his skin like something electric and wrong.

He didn’t know the names of those older guys. Didn’t know what else they were smoking. He just knew he wanted the silence. The weightlessness.

He would chase it again. Not because it felt good—but because it made everything else stop hurting.

That was the beginning.

And no one noticed.

Not then.

2 Years Later

ate August.

The last Saturday before senior year.

The air was thick with heat and humidity, the kind that stuck to your skin and made you feel alive in that buzzing, summer's-almost-over kind of way. The party was at Kingsley Shacklebolt’s lake house this time—every window glowing gold, every dock post wrapped in fairy lights, music rolling off the water in waves.

Sirius Black stood on the edge of the dock with a bottle of beer in one hand and someone else’s lighter in his pocket. His hair was longer now, curled at the edges, unruly like the rest of him. Tattoos ran up his arms—ones he didn’t explain. His leather jacket was slung over someone’s lawn chair.

He hadn’t used in a while.

Not really.

Not unless you counted the odd spliff when things got too loud in his head. Or a pill or two at a show in the city. He didn’t crave it anymore. Didn’t need it. He was good. He was fine.

Remus was somewhere by the firepit, talking to Marlene. James and Lily were probably making out by the boathouse. Peter was passed out in a hammock.

Sirius felt restless. Empty. Like the world was playing in fast-forward and he was stuck in slow motion.

That’s when Rabastan Lestrange showed up.

Older, tanner, grinning with all the smooth cruelty Sirius remembered from that party two years ago. The kind of guy who remembered everyone’s weaknesses and never once forgot how to press them.

“Black,” Rabastan drawled, walking over with a girl on his arm and a small plastic bag in his hand. “Didn’t think you’d still be alive, mate.”

Sirius scoffed. “Sorry to disappoint.”

Rabastan held up the bag, half full of pale tablets like candy hearts. “Come on. You look like you need a reminder that life isn’t all shadows and moaning poetry.”

Sirius hesitated.

The dock swayed under him.

The world buzzed louder than it had a moment ago.

“It’s MD,” Rabastan said casually. “Pure stuff. You’ll feel golden. Like you’re made of light.”

Sirius had heard of it.

He’d also promised Remus he wasn’t doing anything stupid anymore. That was last spring. When Remus found him trembling in a bathroom stall, blood under his fingernails, eyes blown wide. That was after Sirius had gone quiet for three weeks and James had punched a hole in the wall and begged him to come home.

That was the last time.

But this?

This was just… a party.

He could handle it.

He took one.

It hit about forty minutes later.

Like the world opened up and let the light in.

Colors were too bright, music too sharp, the wind on his skin a miracle. He was laughing, dancing, pressed between bodies on the dock with the lake shimmering beside him like glass. His teeth hurt from smiling. He hugged James so tightly he almost knocked him into the water. He told Remus he loved him—really loved him—and meant it in a way that felt more like truth than friendship.

Remus blinked at him, slow and confused. “Are you… okay?”

“I’m so okay,” Sirius said, and meant it so deeply it was almost holy.

That night he didn’t sleep.

He lay on the roof of Kingsley’s boathouse with his shirt off and the stars painted above him like they’d been placed there just for him. He was alone, finally, but he didn’t mind. He felt full. Weightless.

He swore he could still feel Remus’s hand in his.

He’d never felt that kind of high before.

And even as the come-down started to claw its way through him—jaw tight, skin crawling, chest aching—he made himself a quiet, secret promise.

He would feel that again.

He had to.

Just once more.

Just once.

The next time was almost accidental. Almost.

It was the third Friday of the school year, a party at Fabian Prewett’s place, everyone crammed into the kitchen or out back near the garden lights, shouting over the music and pretending they weren’t already tired of being seventeen and expected to have it all figured out.

Sirius leaned against the sink, half-listening to Lily talk about college applications and someone’s new band. His heart wasn’t in it. He laughed at the right times, nodded, drank something warm and fizzy from a red cup—but it was like watching himself from outside his own body.

He kept thinking about that August night. The lake, the wind, the way his skin had felt like fire and light. The way he'd loved everyone—really loved them—and how for once in his life, his brain had gone quiet.

That night had been magic. He hadn’t freaked out. He hadn’t lost control. He hadn’t ended up puking in someone’s tub or crying in a bathroom stall.

He’d just been free.

So when he bumped into Rabastan again by the staircase—grinning, shirt half unbuttoned, like a devil with perfect teeth—it almost felt like fate.

“You look bored,” Rabastan said, already reaching into his pocket.

Sirius hesitated. “Just one,” he said. “It’s not like it’s heroin.”

Rabastan snorted. “Relax. You think too much.”

It tasted like nothing and hit like everything.

The colors came faster this time. The warmth unfurled inside him like heat from a fire he didn’t remember lighting. He danced, he kissed someone (maybe two someones), he told Fabian his freckles were constellations. He pressed his forehead to James’s and told him he was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

James laughed. “Alright, alright, get off me,” he said, good-natured and easy, not noticing how Sirius’s hands trembled slightly or how his pupils were blown wide.

Remus noticed.

Remus always noticed.

He pulled Sirius aside later, under the porch light, voice low and cautious. “Are you…? Did you take something?”

Sirius gave him a crooked smile. “Don’t freak out.”

Remus’s eyes narrowed. “Sirius.”

“I’m fine. Better than fine, actually. I just needed… I needed a night off from being in my head.”

Remus didn’t speak for a long time. Then: “This isn’t the same as weed, Sirius.”

“I know that.”

“Then why are you acting like it is?”

Sirius rolled his eyes, but it didn’t land right. His heartbeat felt strange now, a little too fast. The music inside was starting to feel loud again.

“It was just once more,” he said, brushing past Remus, already lying to himself as much as to him.

It wasn’t a big deal.

He wasn’t spiraling.

It wasn’t like last time.

It wasn’t.

But the truth clung to the inside of his skull, quiet and heavy:

He’d already started chasing the high again. And he already wanted more.

-; ━━━

For a while, Sirius was okay.

School picked up. College essays were due. There were Quidditch practices and classes and weekend drives with James and Peter, all of them yelling at the top of their lungs to the mixtape Lily made for Sirius’s birthday. Remus started coming over again, sprawling on Sirius’s bed like nothing had happened, picking the strings of Sirius’s old acoustic guitar and humming softly under his breath.

The memory of the pills didn’t vanish, but it faded like a bruise. Sirius didn’t touch anything for weeks. Not weed, not drink, not Rabastan’s voice in his ear. He buried it all under jokes and clever essays and late-night conversations. He told himself it was a fluke. He told himself he wasn’t that guy anymore.

He even started sleeping again—deep and dreamless, for the first time in months.

And then October came.

The trees turned red. The air chilled.

And Sirius started to crack at the edges.

It was small things at first. He couldn’t sit still. He started tapping his pen during class, shaking his leg under the desk. He’d start a sentence and forget how it ended. He forgot to eat. He felt like his skin didn’t quite fit right, like he had too much energy boiling underneath it and nowhere to put it.

He didn’t tell anyone.

Why would he?

He liked the energy at first. The buzz under his ribs. The way he could go three nights without sleep and still show up to school early, write three essays in one sitting, charm the socks off the new Charms teacher. He was on fire.

He called James at 2AM just to tell him about a new idea he had for a band name even though they didn’t have a band.

He organized a spontaneous midnight drive out to the cliffs, blasting Bowie and chain-smoking the whole way, laughing so hard he nearly cried when Peter’s hat flew out the window.

Remus stopped him by his locker one morning.

“You okay?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Sirius snapped, too sharply. His hands were trembling a little, half from the coffee, half from nothing at all.

Remus raised an eyebrow. “Because you haven’t blinked in like, three minutes. And you’re sweating.”

“I run hot, Remus. Christ.”

But the truth was starting to claw at the edges of his good mood.

He couldn’t focus. His thoughts raced too fast. His hands shook. The lights in the hall felt too bright. His chest ached, constantly. He didn’t feel golden anymore—he felt stretched. Like elastic. Like something about to snap.

One Thursday, he walked out of class halfway through and didn’t come back.

He wandered for hours. Sat on a bench in the old park near his childhood house. His mother used to take him there when he was little, when she still pretended to love him.

The sky turned gray. Rain started to fall in soft sheets, soaking through his hoodie, his shirt, his skin.

He didn’t move.

He couldn’t tell if he was crying.

His phone buzzed in his pocket: Remus 💬: Where are you? You missed everything today. I’m worried.

Sirius stared at the screen.

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t go home that night.

He didn’t go to school the next day.

And by Saturday, the noise in his head was back, louder than ever, and he was desperate to quiet it.

He showed up at a party that wasn’t even a real party—just a few college guys at someone’s cousin’s flat in the city. The lights were dim. The table was glass. The bag was open on the counter.

He hesitated for exactly three seconds.

Then he reached.

Because the silence was worth anything.
Even this.

He didn’t know. Not then.

The guy who handed it to him had ink on every finger and eyes like oil slicks. “You want quiet?” he said, voice low, already sealing the deal before Sirius even nodded. “You want peace? This’ll get you there.”

Sirius was soaked to the skin, rain still clinging to his eyelashes, hoodie sleeves damp and sagging down to his knuckles. He was shivering, buzzing, half-starved, and something inside him was begging for silence. For stillness. For anything that would slow his heartbeat or speed it up or stop it entirely.

The pill looked familiar. Not exactly like MD, but close. Off-white. Chalky.

“You’ve done this before,” the guy said. Not a question.

Sirius nodded.

Then swallowed.

The first thing he noticed wasn’t the high—it was the quiet. The noise that had been clawing at his skull all week, all month, went dead silent in seconds. It was like a warm room after a blizzard. His lungs stopped clenching. His jaw loosened. His shoulders dropped for the first time in days. He could breathe.

He smiled.

He danced.

He talked to people and said things so fast and clever he felt invincible. He stayed up all night pacing the walls of the flat, tracing circles into the wooden floor, sketching on the back of receipts, making plans to change everything—his future, his name, the universe.

He didn’t sleep.

Not the next night either.

Or the night after.

Three days later, his hands were shaking so violently he couldn’t hold a pen. His lips were cracked and bleeding. His eyes burned in their sockets. His thoughts were unraveling—spinning too fast, too sharp. He hadn’t eaten since Thursday. His skin crawled. His jaw ached from clenching.

The crash hit like a wrecking ball.

He was curled up on the floor of his bedroom, hoodie twisted around his waist, sweat pooling at the base of his spine. The lights were off. The curtains drawn. His phone was dead, thank God, because it had been vibrating all night and he couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn't hear Remus’s voice through the voicemails. Couldn’t hear James knocking on the door, again and again and again.

Because he knew.

Somewhere in his bones, he knew.

That wasn’t MD.

It was stronger. Meaner. Hungrier.

He remembered the guy’s eyes. The way he said “You want quiet?” like it was a deal with the devil.

Sirius curled tighter.

It wasn’t MDMA.

It was meth.

He’d taken meth.

And he wanted more.

Chapter Text

James knocked. Once, twice, then gave up, probably assuming it was a hangover or one of Sirius’s many post-party moods. He wasn’t wrong, just not entirely right either. Sirius heard the knocks and didn’t move. He lay curled under the thin duvet, face turned toward the wall, body aching in a way he couldn’t explain. Not just sick. Not just tired.

Rotten.

He’d brushed his teeth three times that morning, still tasting copper and something acrid in the back of his throat. His head pounded with a low, mean throb, and his skin itched like it didn’t belong to him. The worst part wasn’t the crash—it was the quiet. That deep, crushing quiet that came after the high, so heavy it felt like a punishment.

The first time he’d taken anything had been weed, when he was sixteen and reckless and wanted to feel something besides the bottomless fear of becoming his mother. He hadn’t planned on making a habit out of it. He hadn’t planned on needing it.

He definitely hadn’t planned on this.

Meth. That was what the guy had given him. It hadn’t been MDMA. It had been meth. And he’d taken it willingly.

He hadn’t even asked.

He got out of bed the third morning because he couldn’t stand the smell of himself anymore. He took a long, scalding shower and scrubbed until his skin was pink. When he got out, his hands were shaking as he pulled on jeans and one of his old black jumpers. His hair was damp, curling at the ends, and his face in the mirror looked pale and raw. He looked—older. Like something had been scraped out of him and not replaced.

He went downstairs and made toast he didn’t eat.

James was in the living room playing FIFA and barely glanced up when Sirius sat down on the other end of the couch.

“Hey,” James said around a bite of cereal. “You alive?”

Sirius nodded, slow.

James laughed. “You look like shit.”

Sirius managed a small smirk. “Thanks.”

He didn’t tell him. Of course he didn’t. He wasn’t ready to open his mouth and say Hey, I took meth at a party because I was sad and now I feel like I’ve cracked in half.

Instead, he pretended. Because Sirius Black was excellent at pretending. Always had been.

And pretending meant showing up to school two days later like nothing happened.

-; ━━━

The first week back felt like moving through molasses.

It was early September, still hot enough to sweat through the backs of their shirts by third period, but the sticky warmth did nothing to ease the tension in Sirius’s chest. Every hallway felt too loud. Every classroom too bright. His fingers twitched constantly—pulling at the frayed ends of his sleeves, tapping against the desks, clicking and unclicking his pen until Peter eventually reached over and took it from him with a Look.

“Are you okay?” Peter whispered.

Sirius didn’t answer.

Remus hadn’t spoken to him yet. Not properly. He’d looked at him, once, in their shared free period, his eyes dark and full of something Sirius didn’t want to name. Worry. Disappointment. Hurt.

Sirius had avoided him since.

Instead, he stuck close to James, who didn’t ask questions. James cracked jokes and spun pencils between his fingers and suggested skipping out on their last period to go buy Slurpees at the corner store. Sirius said yes before James even finished the sentence. Because it was easier. It was safe.

That was what his life became for a while. Quiet avoidance. Careful performance. A very convincing impression of someone who had it together.

He laughed when he was supposed to. He showed up on time. He did just enough work to keep his grades up. And he didn’t touch anything. Not even weed. Not even alcohol.

“I’m on a cleanse,” he joked when Marlene passed him a joint at a bonfire.

“You’re on bullshit,” she said, but shrugged and smoked it herself.

Sirius sat with his knees pulled to his chest and stared at the fire. His hands were clammy. He wasn’t sure why.

He hadn’t taken anything in nearly four weeks. That had to mean something, right?

He’d been good. Careful. Calm.

Except when he wasn’t.

-; ━━━

It started with the noise.

He couldn’t tell if it was inside his head or not. A buzzing, low and sharp and constant, like fluorescent lights that wouldn’t stop humming. He heard it most in class, when things were quiet and still, and it made him want to dig his nails into the wood of the desk. By the second week of school, he’d stopped sleeping more than a few hours at a time. Every night was the same: staring at the ceiling, counting the seconds between heartbeats, thinking about the high like it was an old friend.

He didn’t want to use again. He really didn’t.

But he also didn’t want to keep feeling like this.

It wasn’t just noise. It was emptiness. Like something in him had been sucked out and replaced with static. And no matter how many coffees he drank, or how long he paced the pavement, or how many hours he stared blankly at a book—he couldn’t feel anything.

He didn't know if it was withdrawal. Or depression. Or if it was just him.

Boring. Empty. Ugly. Sirius Black without the show.

He started avoiding Remus harder. Because Remus saw things. Sirius couldn’t handle the idea of Remus looking at him and knowing.

Knowing that Sirius was broken, and worse—trying to glue himself back together with nothing but glitter and duct tape and lies.

One morning, Remus cornered him outside the history building.

“Hey,” he said softly.

Sirius blinked. “Hi.”

Remus shifted his bag. “You okay?”

Sirius smiled. Big and bright. “Of course I am.”

Remus’s eyes flicked over his face. “You sure?”

“Never better,” Sirius lied, and walked away before he said something real.

-; ━━━

He almost told the truth that night.

They were on the roof of James’s house, the three of them—Sirius, James, and Remus—passing around a bag of stale popcorn and watching the moon slide between clouds.

Sirius wasn’t high. He wasn’t drunk. He was just tired.

And for a moment, sitting there with their knees pressed together and James humming softly under his breath, Sirius thought: maybe I could tell them. Maybe I could say it.

But then he imagined their faces. Remus’s disappointment. James’s panic. The weight of their worry crashing down like cement.

So instead, he said: “Did you know the moon smells like gunpowder?”

James blinked. “How the hell would you know?”

“I read it,” Sirius said. “Astronauts said the dust clung to their suits. Smelled like spent bullets.”

“That’s metal,” James said approvingly.

Sirius smiled.

He didn’t tell them.

Because if he told them, it would be real.

And right now, the lie was still easier to live inside.

Sirius is still “holding it together.” Still pretending. But the cracks are growing. And when the next party comes… he makes a decision that will shape everything.

-; ━━━
The party is at someone’s cousin’s house. A kid who graduated two years ago, now working construction and still living in his parents’ basement. There’s a hot tub on the porch and enough liquor to drown a city block. Sirius doesn’t want to go—but James insists.

“Come on,” James says, throwing an arm around his neck, too cheerful, too warm. “We’ll go for, like, an hour. Just long enough for me to get rejected by Marlene again.”

Sirius wants to say no. He wants to say I can’t trust myself right now. But instead he says, “Fine, but I’m not wearing shoes,” and James laughs like that’s exactly the answer he expected.

So Sirius goes. And he tells himself he won’t do anything. Not even drink. Not even smoke. He just wants to feel normal, be around people, laugh at a joke that doesn’t make his skin crawl.

But the music is too loud, the lights are too low, and the moment he walks inside, he wants to run.

There are people everywhere—seniors, graduates, strangers with tattoos and too many rings and eyes that don’t stay in one place. Someone bumps into him with a plastic cup full of red jungle juice and mutters an apology that Sirius doesn’t hear.

He finds the kitchen and plants himself there, pretending to scroll through his phone. He answers a text from James, even though James is in the same house. He says he’s fine. He says he’s chill. He says he’s “having fun.”

That’s when he sees them. The guys from the other room. Not quite older, but not young either. Their laughter is too loud, too forced. One of them is wearing a leather jacket indoors. The other has a rolled-up dollar bill behind his ear.

Sirius’s hands shake just looking at them.

He tries to leave. Really, he does. He makes it to the front door. His hand touches the knob. But then he hears it—

“Yo. Black.”

He turns.

It’s the guy from the last party. Not Rabastan—but the one with the fast car and the busted knuckles and the laugh that makes Sirius feel like he’s back at Grimmauld Place, being told to stand still and not speak.

“You good?” the guy says.

Sirius’s heart is pounding. “Yeah. I was just—getting some air.”

“You want something better than air?”

Sirius pauses.

He knows what this is. He knows better. He knows. But the lie comes fast. The worst one yet.

“I can handle it.”

The guy smiles. “Thought you might say that.”

-; ━━━

The bathroom smells like weed, spilled beer, and something too clean—like bleach. The counter is sticky. The mirror is cracked. Someone’s name is written in Sharpie on the wall.

The guy pulls out a small, clear bag. Not powder, not rocks. Just white. Pure. Cocaine.

Sirius stares at it.

He’s never done coke before.

He tells himself that’s good. That means it’s safe. It’s not meth. It’s not a relapse. It’s a new thing. Clean slate. Clean line.

“You sure you’re good with this?” the guy says, already lining it up on the edge of the sink.

Sirius nods.

But he’s not. He’s not good with anything. He hasn’t been good in months. Years. Maybe ever.

The guy hands him the bill.

Sirius takes it.

He leans down. He snorts.

And for about thirty seconds, it feels like the world flips inside out.

The high hits quick—harder than he expected. It’s not like weed. Not like MDMA. Not like meth. It’s electric. Everything sharpens. Everything feels possible.

His hands stop shaking. His head clears. He laughs.

He forgets the crash, the silence, the way he cried on his bathroom floor two weeks ago. He forgets Remus’s eyes. He forgets James’s dumb, kind voice. He forgets who he was and becomes someone else entirely.

Someone golden. Untouchable.

Invincible.

-; ━━━

An hour later, he’s in the backyard, shirtless, talking too fast to a girl whose name he doesn’t ask. He’s explaining the moon again. Something about gravity and dreams and how wolves don’t actually howl at it, they just need something to scream at. She nods, laughing, even though none of it makes sense.

He doesn’t care. He feels good.

He hugs people he barely knows. He tells Peter he’s a “fucking genius.” He pulls James into a dance he doesn’t remember. For a few beautiful, impossible hours, he’s back.

The version of Sirius everyone loves. Loud. Bright. Burning.

And then it ends.

-; ━━━

The crash isn’t as bad this time. That’s what he tells himself the next morning.

Sure, his nose hurts. His mouth is dry. His thoughts are running laps in his skull. But he’s fine. He showers. He eats. He even laughs at a joke James makes about him snoring on the car ride home.

“You were like a lawn mower,” James says. “I thought we were gonna have to call animal control.”

Sirius grins. “You’re just jealous I sleep like a king.”

James rolls his eyes. “Sure. A king with allergies.”

They laugh. It feels real.

Sirius thinks: See? I’m okay.

And that’s how it starts.

-; ━━━

Sirius didn’t mean to start lying. Not at first.

He didn’t think of it as lying when he didn’t tell James how many times he’d taken coke since that party. Or when he shrugged off Peter’s comment about how thin he was getting. Or when he told Marlene he was just “tired” when she asked if he was okay.

He told himself it was protection. Self-preservation.

He told himself it didn’t count unless someone asked directly.

And no one ever really did. Not the way that mattered.

Except Remus.

Remus always asked the way that mattered.

—

It was a Thursday when Sirius almost told him.

The sun was already setting by the time they walked back from the library together, the sky bruising purple behind the trees. Sirius hadn’t been sleeping again. His hands trembled just a little, twitching at the edges of his hoodie sleeves. He’d taken something that morning—just a little bump, to “get through the day,” as if it were a coffee, not a warning sign.

Remus had been quiet the whole walk.

And Sirius, jittery and wired under his skin, couldn’t take it anymore.

“What?” he snapped, too sharply. “Just say it.”

Remus blinked at him. “Say what?”

“Whatever it is you’re thinking. I know you, Moons. You’re looking at me.”

Remus slowed to a stop. They were near the park, dusk turning the grass silver. He turned to face him.

“You’ve been different.”

Sirius huffed a laugh, forced. “That’s not exactly a revelation. I’m always different.”

“I mean lately.” Remus’s voice was low. Careful. Like he was talking to something skittish. “You don’t sleep. You barely eat. You talk a mile a minute and then you go completely silent. You shake like you’re freezing even when it’s warm. You cancel plans, then show up uninvited.”

“I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

Remus’s eyes didn’t move from his face. “Did you take something?”

Sirius flinched. Just barely. But Remus saw it.

“Don’t lie to me,” he added, and his voice cracked, just enough for Sirius to feel it in his ribs. “Please don’t lie.”

For one wild, terrifying second, Sirius almost did it.

He almost said: Yes. Yes, I did. And I’m scared, and I don’t know how to stop, and I feel like I’m watching myself from the outside and I don’t recognize who I am anymore and I think I’m in trouble.

He almost told the truth.

But then Remus’s face shifted—just the faintest flicker of worry, of fear—and Sirius panicked. Because if Remus looked at him like that for even one more second, Sirius would shatter.

So instead, he laughed.

“Oh my God, Moony, you sound like my mum.”

“Sirius—”

“Relax,” Sirius said, slinging an arm around his shoulders with a grin that hurt his face to wear. “I haven’t taken anything. Jesus. I’m just stressed, alright? Uni applications, the world ending, capitalism—you know how it is.”

Remus didn’t move. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not,” Sirius said, soft and dangerous. “Don’t call me a liar.”

Remus looked at him like he didn’t recognize him. “I know you.”

“Maybe you don’t.”

It hung between them, sharp and cold.

Then Sirius stepped back and let the smile come again. Too wide. Too bright. His eyes glittering with nothing.

“You worry too much,” he said, tapping Remus’s cheek with two fingers. “It’s adorable. Really.”

Remus opened his mouth to say something else, but Sirius was already walking ahead, calling over his shoulder, “Come on, I’ll race you back.”

—

He told himself it wasn’t lying. It was control.

But the next day, when Lily asked how he was doing, he smiled and said, “Peachy.”

When Peter offered him a cigarette and asked if he was quitting everything, Sirius laughed and said, “I’ve transcended.”

When James mentioned how he never sees Sirius in the mornings anymore, Sirius said, “I’ve started meditating.”

By the end of the week, he was lying so easily it didn’t even sting.

That scared him more than the coke.

-; ━━━

He went to another party that weekend. He didn’t want to, but he had to.

Because if he stayed home, the walls would close in. The thoughts would get loud. The itch under his skin would grow teeth.

So he went.

And when someone passed him a rolled-up twenty, he didn’t hesitate.

Because he was already lying. Already performing.

And he wanted the high to match the mask.

Chapter Text

Sirius is fine.

He’s fine.

He still shows up to class. Not on time, not always present, but physically, sure. He still makes people laugh. He still spins stories, still plays his role with the same exhausted brilliance that made people fall in love with him in the first place.

He’s just tired, that’s all.

Everyone’s tired.

-; ━━━

He doesn’t take anything for a while. Not really.

Nothing hard, anyway.

A bump of coke here. A pill there. Something to make a night feel less lonely, a morning feel less heavy, a conversation feel less sharp.

He tells himself he has it under control. Because look: he’s not like those people. He still laughs. He still flirts. He still brushes his teeth every night.

He doesn’t shake as often. He’s eating again. Kind of.

He’s fine.

-; ━━━

There are signs, of course. Cracks.

He forgets to text people back.

He sleeps through first period three days in a row.

He snaps at James when he doesn’t mean to. Says something cruel, then laughs like it was a joke. James laughs too, but there’s a second too long where the hurt is real.

He loses his house key.

He stares at himself in the mirror for twenty minutes and doesn’t blink.

He calls Regulus at 2:11am and hangs up before it rings.

He writes a message in eyeliner on his bathroom mirror—GET IT TOGETHER—and then wipes it off before anyone sees.

He’s fine.

-; ━━━

Remus knows something is wrong.

He doesn’t say it directly, but Sirius sees it in how he watches him. Too careful. Too gentle.

Remus always did see too much.

He doesn’t ask again like he did that night by the park, but sometimes he’ll touch Sirius’s wrist, right over the veins, and Sirius will flinch, and Remus will pretend not to notice.

Sometimes Sirius wants to scream. Just ask me again. Just ask, and I’ll say yes this time. I’ll say help.

But Remus doesn’t. And Sirius doesn’t.

So they keep pretending.

-; ━━━

There’s a school event. A fundraiser. Something about winter coats and canned food. Sirius shows up late, smelling like mint and cologne and the wrong kind of smoke.

He jokes his way through it. Makes the other kids laugh. Hugs Lily too long. Winks at Marlene. Pours himself coffee he doesn’t drink.

Remus stands behind him most of the night, arms crossed.

“You’re fidgety,” Remus says.

“I’m charismatic,” Sirius replies.

“You’re twitchy.”

“I’m animated.”

“You’re lying.”

“Then don’t listen.”

Remus doesn’t say anything. Just presses a granola bar into Sirius’s hand before walking away.

Sirius throws it out when no one’s looking.

-; ━━━

It gets worse slowly.

The coke starts to burn. He snorts too hard once and his nose bleeds for six minutes straight. He tilts his head back and lets the blood run down his throat. It tastes like metal and rot. It makes him laugh.

His moods swing harder. Up, down, up, down. High, giddy, grandiose mornings followed by nights spent under his covers with the pillow pressed over his face.

He smokes pot to come down. Drinks to sleep. Lies to breathe.

No one notices. Or maybe they do, but they don’t know what they’re seeing.

He’s just a little wild, they say. He’s just eccentric.

He’s just Sirius.

-; ━━━

Then one night, James finds the coke.

It’s in Sirius’s glove compartment. A stupid hiding spot. Sirius forgot it was there.

James is digging around for something, a spare charger or gum, when he finds it. A tiny bag. Ziplocked. Too clean.

“Sirius?”

Sirius freezes.

James holds it up, two fingers and a look on his face like someone just kicked him.

“What the fuck is this?”

Sirius’s brain screams LIE, so he does. “It’s not mine.”

James doesn’t blink.

“Come on, man,” Sirius laughs. “You think I’d be dumb enough to keep that in my car?”

“You literally did.”

“It’s not mine.”

“Then whose is it?”

Sirius shrugs. “Someone I hooked up with, maybe. I don’t know.”

James stares at him. “Are you doing coke?”

Sirius smiles. “Do I look like I’m doing coke?”

“You look—” James breaks off. Runs a hand through his hair. “You look fucked up, Pads.”

“Okay, rude.”

“Sirius.”

“It’s not mine.”

The silence is ugly.

Finally James says, “If you ever want to talk, you can.”

And Sirius, who suddenly feels like he might cry, says, “Thanks,” and gets out of the car and lights a cigarette with trembling hands.

-; ━━━

Later that night, he does the rest of the bag.

Not because he wants to.

Because he has to.

Because if it’s gone, it can’t hurt him.

Because if he does it now, it doesn’t count.

Because if it burns, at least he’ll feel something.

Because if he can fly for an hour, maybe he won’t crash so hard.

-; ━━━

And then: the crash.

Worse than ever before.

He doesn’t sleep for two days. He texts Remus nonsense at 3am. He tells James he’s going for a walk and doesn’t come back for eight hours.

He has a full breakdown in the shower. Punches the tile until his knuckles split. Screams into a towel. Stares at his reflection until he doesn’t know who it is.

He goes to school with a black eye and says he fell down the stairs.

Remus doesn’t believe him.

Peter doesn’t ask.

James doesn’t laugh.

-; ━━━

James finds it again.

This time, it’s under Sirius’s bed. An old book hollowed out with a knife—Sirius thought he was clever, thought he was subtle. But he forgot about James’s habit of borrowing things without asking. And there it is. A dust-jacket copy of Slaughterhouse-Five, heavier than it should be. He opens it, and everything falls out: a half-empty bag, a rolled note, the edges stained from too many hands.

James doesn’t say anything at first. Not until Sirius comes home, flinging the front door open like a storm, a smirk already forming, something stupid and charming at the ready.

And then he sees James standing in the hall, holding the book like a question and the bag like a weapon.

“Pads,” James says.

Sirius freezes. One step over the threshold, still in his boots, snow melting on the mat.

James holds the coke between two fingers. “You told me you weren’t doing this.”

“I’m not.”

“You lied.”

Sirius doesn’t move. “It’s not mine.”

James’s voice is low. Flat. Dangerous in how controlled it is. “Try again.”

“I told you, someone must’ve—”

“Cut the shit.”

Sirius exhales through his nose. Tries a smile that doesn’t reach anywhere. “Are we really gonna do this right now?”

“I asked you last month. I gave you a chance. I didn’t push. You said you were clean.”

“I am.”

James throws the bag. It hits the floor and slides across the hardwood. “Clean people don’t hide this in fake books, Sirius.”

The silence after that is brutal.

Sirius lowers his head. Laughs once, sharp. “You went through my stuff?”

“I was looking for a book,” James says, and his voice shakes now. “I was gonna borrow it, like I always do. I didn’t want to find this.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have looked.”

“Maybe you should stop doing fucking coke.”

Sirius snaps his head up, face hard. “Don’t talk to me like I’m some strung-out junkie, alright?”

“I don’t know how to talk to you anymore, Sirius!”

James’s words land like fists. The echo sits in the air between them.

“I don’t know what version of you I’m gonna get. You disappear. You lie. You laugh like everything’s a joke, and when I try to get through to you, you make me feel crazy for even asking.”

“I never asked you to care.”

James flinches. Sirius sees it. Regrets it.

But it’s already out, and he’s already too far gone.

“I never asked you to fix me,” Sirius adds, quieter. But it doesn’t soften the blow.

James shakes his head, jaw clenched. “You’re right. You didn’t. But I did anyway. Because I love you. Because you’re my best friend. And I’m watching you burn yourself alive and calling it warmth.”

Sirius says nothing.

James exhales. “Get out.”

“What?”

“Just for tonight. I can’t—” He rubs his eyes. “I can’t do this right now. Go stay with Remus or something.”

Sirius nods. Quiet. No fight left.

He picks up his bag. Doesn’t pack anything. Just leaves.

-; ━━━

It’s already dark when he gets to Remus’s house.

He doesn’t call ahead. He never does.

He knocks once, then lets himself in. The lights are low. The whole place smells like tea and books and the kind of safety Sirius never lets himself want too much.

Remus looks up from the couch. He’s got a blanket on his lap, a pen between his teeth, reading something with marginalia in five colors.

“You’re early,” Remus says, setting the book down. “Movie night wasn’t till tomorrow.”

“I needed air.”

Remus watches him for a second too long.

Then: “Everything okay?”

Sirius shrugs. “James is being dramatic.”

Remus doesn’t buy it. But he doesn’t ask yet.

“Want tea?”

Sirius nods.

They don’t talk much. Sirius curls up at the end of the couch like a ghost of himself. He makes jokes about the film Remus puts on—some old black-and-white noir—but they don’t land. He pulls the blanket tighter. Doesn’t touch Remus. Doesn’t say anything real.

When Remus falls asleep with his head tilted to one side, mouth open slightly, Sirius stares at him for a long time.

He’s going to lose him too, he thinks.
He’s going to lose them all.

-; ━━━

He doesn’t sleep.

At 3:21am, he gets up and checks the bathroom mirror. His pupils are huge. His hands won’t stop shaking.

He washes his face. It doesn’t help.

He looks in the mirror and tries to smile. His reflection doesn’t move.

-; ━━━

By the morning, he’s gone.

Leaves a note on the kitchen counter:

Thanks. See you at school.
– S

He doesn’t show up that day.

-; ━━━

Sirius stays at Remus’s house longer than he means to.

First it’s just a night. Then two. Then a week. Then Remus starts setting out a second mug in the morning without comment, and Sirius pretends that’s normal.

They don’t talk about why he’s there. Not really. James hasn’t texted. Sirius hasn’t tried. He left the book under the bed when he left. He doesn’t ask if James burned it. He kind of hopes he did.

He tells himself this is a reset. A detox. A break.

He doesn’t tell Remus he’s still craving every second of every day.

He doesn’t tell Remus that some mornings he wakes up thinking about the coke like it’s a person. That he dreams about it. That he smells it on his hands even when they’re clean.

He just smiles. Offers to make pancakes. Pretends.

Remus lets him.

-; ━━━

But at night—it’s worse.

Sirius has never slept well, but now the dreams are violent.

Needles. Nosebleeds. His mother’s voice. Regulus crying. Hands on his shoulders, forcing, always forcing. The cold metal of a spoon. A laugh that turns into a scream. A lie that turns into truth.

Some nights he wakes up and can’t breathe.

He bites the pillow to keep from screaming. Presses his fists to his mouth. Sits in the shower fully clothed with the water as hot as it goes just to feel something clean.

Remus doesn’t mention the circles under his eyes. Just starts leaving tea outside his door.

-; ━━━

It’s a Thursday night when it happens.

The nightmare is bad. Worse than usual.

He’s in his childhood bedroom, but it’s not really his. The walls are bleeding. The floor is coke. His reflection in the mirror is laughing at him—methhead, freak, liar, liar, liar.

When he wakes up, he’s not breathing.

It takes a full minute to realize he’s not dying.

He stumbles out of bed. Cold sweat. Bare feet. No plan.

He knocks on Remus’s door.

Once.

Twice.

The light turns on inside.

The door opens.

“Sirius?”

Sirius doesn’t answer.

He just walks forward. No words. No performance. No walls.

He steps into the room and presses his face into Remus’s chest.

Remus is warm. Barely awake. He puts his arms around him instantly, no hesitation, just instinct. Just love.

Sirius starts crying and doesn’t stop.

Not soft tears. Not cinematic. Ugly, gasping sobs. His whole body shakes. His knees buckle.

Remus holds him up.

“Sirius, what—?”

“I lied,” Sirius chokes. “I’ve been lying.”

Remus’s hand is already at the back of his neck, grounding him. “Okay.”

“No, not okay. It’s not okay. It’s bad, it’s all—fuck, Remus—”

“Shh.”

“I did coke.”

Remus doesn’t flinch.

Sirius keeps going, the words like blood from a reopened wound. “Since last year. Not all the time. But—sometimes. I liked it. It made me feel like someone else.”

Remus doesn’t speak.

“And I thought I could stop. I thought I had. I told James I had.”

Another breath, broken.

“But I didn’t. I lied. I kept doing it. Not a lot. Just—enough. I thought it wasn’t hurting anyone.”

Remus tightens his hold. “It was hurting you.”

Sirius nods against him.

“There was this one night,” he whispers. “A party. I thought it was molly. I took it, and it—it wasn’t. It was meth.”

Remus stiffens slightly. His hand doesn’t move.

Sirius keeps talking.

“I didn’t know. I didn’t know until later. But it—I liked it. Too much. I bought more. I didn’t even mean to. I didn’t think I was that person.”

“You’re not.”

“I am.”

“You’re not.”

Sirius finally lifts his head. His eyes are red. His nose is running. He looks like something dying.

“I’m so fucking tired, Moons.”

“I know.”

“I’m scared I can’t stop.”

Remus presses their foreheads together. “You’re stopping now.”

“What if I can’t?”

“You told me. That’s step one.”

“I don’t deserve step one.”

“You do.”

Sirius’s voice is wrecked. “Why?”

“Because you’re still here.”

-; ━━━

They don’t sleep that night.

Remus makes tea.

Sirius holds the mug but doesn’t drink it.

He sits on the floor with his knees pulled to his chest, eyes empty.

And Remus stays next to him.

All night.

No more pretending.

Just breathing.

Together.

-; ━━━

He’s getting better.

That’s what they all say.

Even Remus, careful as ever, starts to smile again when Sirius makes stupid jokes. He’s started taking showers every day again, shaving with something other than rage, eating more than toast and coffee. He laughs louder. His eyes shine.

It’s a good week.

Then two.

Then three.

“I feel amazing,” Sirius says one morning, grinning as he throws open the window in Remus’s room even though it’s snowing. “Do you feel that? The air, Moons.”

Remus peers at him over the rim of his mug, frowning gently. “You’re barefoot.”

Sirius is. But he doesn’t care.

He spins in the center of the room like a kid. “God, I haven’t felt this alive in months. Maybe years.”

Remus watches him carefully. “That’s good,” he says, slowly. “But… just keep checking in, alright?”

Sirius waves him off. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got it under control. I’m on fire.”

He means it. His heart beats like a war drum. He’s not sleeping, but he doesn’t need it. His thoughts come fast, layered over each other like static. He writes four songs in one night and starts planning a trip to Manchester in February. He dyes a streak of his hair pink at 3 a.m. and laughs so hard in the bathroom that Remus wakes up.

He’s fine. Better than fine. He’s a goddamn symphony.

And then…

-; ━━━

It’s a Wednesday when it breaks.

Remus finds him in the kitchen, scrubbing the same spot on the counter over and over, long after it’s clean.

There’s coffee spilled. Flour on the floor. The blender is running with nothing in it.

“Sirius?”

He doesn’t look up.

His hand keeps scrubbing.

“Sirius,” Remus tries again, gently.

No answer.

Remus crosses the room slowly. Puts a hand on his shoulder.

Sirius startles like he’s been shot.

“Hey,” Remus says, softer than soft. “You’re okay.”

“I can’t slow down,” Sirius whispers. “I can’t stop. It’s like—I can hear everything. All at once. And it’s all so loud.”

Remus nods. “Okay. Okay. We can breathe through it.”

“I haven’t slept in three days.”

“I know.”

“I feel like my bones are moving. Like they’re—buzzing.”

Remus doesn’t let go of him. “We’ll figure it out.”

“I was doing so well.”

“You are doing well. This is part of it. This isn’t your fault.”

“I think I’m going crazy.”

“You’re not. You’re sick, not broken.”

Sirius finally leans against him, forehead on Remus’s shoulder.

“I want it again,” he says. Barely a whisper. “The coke. The high. The way it makes this shut up.”

Remus doesn’t flinch. “I know you do.”

“I haven’t taken anything,” Sirius says quickly. “I swear. I haven’t.”

“I believe you.”

“But I think about it. All the time. I see people walking down the street and wonder if they’d sell to me. I look at twenty-dollar bills and think about rolling them up. And then I want to scream because I thought I was past this.”

Remus just holds him tighter.

They stay like that for a long time.

-; ━━━

That night, Remus calls a psychiatrist.

Sirius listens from the hallway. He hears the words:

“Manic episode.”
“Bipolar.”
“Substance-induced dysregulation.”
“Urgent, yes. But not emergency. He’s safe. He’s trying.”

Remus hangs up. Comes out and takes Sirius’s hand without saying anything.

They sit on the couch in silence.

Sirius leans his head on Remus’s shoulder.

“I’m scared,” he says.

“I know.”

Chapter Text

The next morning, the snow has stopped.

Sirius wakes up on the couch, Remus’s too-soft throw blanket tangled around his legs, his head pounding from exhaustion. There’s tea on the coffee table. Toast, too, perfectly golden, no crusts.

The clock says 11:03 a.m.

Remus is in the kitchen, back to him, reading something on his laptop.

Sirius sits up. The blanket falls.

He remembers.

All of it.

The nightmare. The confession. The shaking. The words he said without stopping. The way Remus held him.

And then—

The phone call.

“Morning,” Remus says gently, like they didn’t bleed all over the floor the night before. “I didn’t wake you.”

“I wasn’t really sleeping,” Sirius says, voice rough.

“I figured.”

A pause.

Then: “You talked to someone,” Sirius says. It’s not a question.

Remus nods. “A psychiatrist. Just for an evaluation. They had a cancellation, so there's an opening tomorrow.”

Sirius is quiet.

Remus keeps his voice soft. “We don’t have to do anything yet. You can just talk. See what they say. That’s all.”

Sirius nods again, slowly.

But something in him is retreating already.

He stands up. Picks up the tea. Drinks half in one go.

“I’m not going,” he says suddenly.

Remus looks up. “You don’t have to decide now.”

“I decided.”

“Sirius—”

“No.”

There’s a brittle edge in his voice now, sharp like broken glass.

“I’m not sick,” he says. “I mean—I am, maybe. But not like that. I don’t need someone to put a label on me and shove me on meds.”

“No one’s going to shove you anywhere.”

“You don’t get it.”

“Then explain.”

Sirius paces. “If I go in there, they’ll say I’m bipolar, right? That’s what they’ll say. Like it’s fact. Like it’s this thing I’ve always had, like it’s written in my blood.”

Remus stands slowly, careful not to come too close. “It might be. And maybe knowing that could help.”

“Or maybe it makes it worse,” Sirius snaps. “Maybe it makes this real.”

“It already is.”

“I’m not some statistic, Remus. I’m not a warning sign.”

“I know.”

Sirius laughs bitterly. “Do you? You called for me. Like a parent. Like I can’t make my own fucking decisions.”

“I called because I love you.”

“Well maybe you shouldn’t.”

The words hang there. Awful. Sharp.

Sirius blinks. He didn’t mean to say that.

Remus doesn’t react.

He just swallows, once.

And says, very softly, “I’m still here.”

Sirius looks away.

He feels cracked open and furious. At himself. At his brain. At the world. At the ache under his skin.

“I just—I thought if I told you, it would help.”

“It does.”

“Then why does it feel worse?”

“Because now it’s real,” Remus says gently. “And you’re facing it instead of numbing it.”

Sirius breathes hard through his nose.

“I don’t want meds,” he says again, smaller.

“No one’s prescribing anything yet. Just a conversation.”

“I don’t want someone telling me I’m going to be like this forever.”

“Then don’t go for them,” Remus says. “Go for you.”

Sirius shakes his head. “I need to be in control. I need to be the one choosing.”

Remus nods. “Okay. Then choose. But choose with all the facts.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“That’s all I’m asking.”

Sirius bites the inside of his cheek.

He doesn’t say anything else.

Remus doesn’t push.

The tea goes cold.

-; ━━━

That night, Sirius doesn’t have a nightmare.

But he also doesn’t sleep.

He lies awake staring at the ceiling, wondering what would happen if he really did go.

If someone said yes, this thing you feel, it has a name.

If they told him he wasn’t broken. Just wired differently.

If there was help. Real help.

He hates that he wants that.

He hates that he’s scared.

He hates that even in this moment of stillness, he doesn’t know who he is without the high, without the chaos, without the crash.

And he hates—more than anything—that Remus still looks at him like he’s worth staying for.

Now Sirius is trying.

Trying to feel normal again. Trying to stay clean. Trying to prove something.

But the thing about healing is that it doesn’t erase what came before.

-; ━━━

The first day back is grey.

Not rainy—just grey. Flat clouds, dirty snow piled in the corners of the school lot, the kind of cold that gets in your throat and stays there.

Sirius walks in with Remus.

They don’t talk much on the way.

Remus has his sleeves pulled over his hands, clutching a travel mug. Sirius has his headphones on but no music playing. He just needs the buffer.

The hallway is loud. Too loud. Backpacks swing, lockers clang, someone’s shouting across the atrium. It’s like nothing’s happened.

Except everything has.

And Sirius feels like a glass pane among bricks.

He sees James before James sees him.

They’re by the locker bay—James and Peter, deep in conversation. James is in a new varsity hoodie. His curls are tied back in a half-knot. He looks good.

He looks fine.

Remus murmurs something—maybe “good luck,” maybe “you’ve got this”—but Sirius barely hears it.

He walks up to them anyway.

Because he has to.

“Hey,” Sirius says, too casual.

Peter looks up, then looks away. James goes still.

Then slowly, he turns.

“Hey,” he says back.

There’s a beat of silence.

Sirius shifts from one foot to the other. “Can I… sit with you at lunch?”

James raises an eyebrow. “Yeah. Sure.”

Another beat.

Sirius exhales, trying to smile. “I’m clean. Again.”

James doesn’t respond right away.

Peter looks between them.

Finally, James nods. Just once.

“Good,” he says. Quiet. Not angry. Not warm, either. Just good.

Sirius hates that it hurts. Hates that this is what they’ve become.

But he also gets it.

He’d be cautious too.

“Thanks,” Sirius mumbles. “I mean it.”

James shrugs. “See you at lunch.”

And just like that, it’s over.

He turns back to his locker. The conversation resumes.

Sirius walks away, throat dry.

-; ━━━

At lunch, Sirius sits at the end of the table.

It feels like visiting a house you used to live in. Everything familiar, but none of it yours anymore.

James talks to Peter. Peter talks to Mary. Mary talks to both of them. No one really talks to Sirius, except for Lily, who smiles at him—soft and a little wary.

He smiles back.

It’s something.

He eats half a sandwich. Drinks water. Taps his fingers on the table.

Remus doesn’t sit with them. Sirius isn’t sure if that was on purpose.

He stares down at his tray.

He’s clean.

He’s clean.

He’s clean.

But it doesn’t feel like winning.

It feels like floating, right above the glass.

And wondering when it’s going to crack again.

-; ━━━

It happens on a Wednesday.

Nothing big. Nothing awful. Just… a bad day.

Chem class drags. He gets a B- on a history quiz. Someone laughs too loud in the hallway and it hits Sirius in the teeth.

He can’t explain it. That sensation. Like everything is wrong even though it’s fine.

His skin feels two sizes too tight. His jaw hurts from clenching it. And when he catches sight of himself in the bathroom mirror—wide-eyed, pale, breathing too fast—he doesn’t recognize what he sees.

He doesn’t go to lunch.

He walks instead. The long way home.

Remus is still at school for a club meeting. No one’s home.

The silence is loud.

Sirius opens the drawer in his backpack. His emergency stash. It’s not much—just something leftover from before. He told himself he was going to throw it out.

He never did.

His hands shake.

But he does it anyway.

-; ━━━

The high is brief. Not euphoric. Just… numb.

He showers after. Scrubs his skin raw. Brushes his teeth three times.

By the time Remus gets home, Sirius is curled on the couch, pretending to read.

Remus glances at him. Says hi. Then says nothing.

But Sirius sees it—the flicker of knowing. The way Remus’s eyes linger too long. The way his shoulders go still.

“Good day?” Remus asks, voice careful.

“Yeah,” Sirius lies. “Fine.”

“You didn’t eat your lunch.”

“Forgot.”

“You okay?”

“Totally.”

Remus doesn’t respond.

Sirius turns the page of his book, even though he hasn’t read a word.

-; ━━━

He thinks he’s gotten away with it.

But the next day, Remus watches him like a hawk.

Sirius smiles wider. Makes jokes. Eats breakfast. Sips coffee like a normal person.

He hates how easy it is.

At lunch, he slides into his usual spot next to James.

James nudges him. “Yo, did you see what Mary did in chem? Almost set her sleeve on fire.”

Sirius laughs. Too loud. Too much.

Peter joins in, and it feels good. It feels normal. For a moment, Sirius believes the lie too.

Until James turns to him and says, “You look tired.”

“I’m not,” Sirius says.

James raises an eyebrow. “You okay?”

“Totally.” The word tastes like ash.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Been sleeping weird, that’s all.”

Peter chimes in. “You always sleep weird.”

Everyone laughs.

The moment passes.

But James watches him for just a second longer.

And Sirius knows that look.

He turns away. Swallows the lump in his throat.

-; ━━━

Later that night, Remus knocks on his door.

“Can I come in?”

Sirius hesitates. “Yeah.”

Remus closes the door softly behind him. Doesn’t sit down. Just stands there.

“I want to ask you something,” he says.

Sirius doesn’t look up. “Okay.”

“Did you use yesterday?”

Silence.

Then—

“No,” Sirius lies. Again. “Why would you even—”

“Because I know you.”

Sirius shrugs. “I didn’t.”

Remus nods. “Okay.”

He leaves after that.

No lecture. No fight. Just quiet disappointment.

And for some reason, that’s worse than anything else.

-; ━━━

Sirius lies in bed, staring at the ceiling.

The lie is so loud in his mouth, he can still taste it.

He lied to Remus.

To James.

To Peter.

He’s clean.

Except he’s not.

Not really.

And the worst part is—he’s not even sure he wants to stop.

Not yet.

Not tonight.

-; ━━━

Sirius skips school for the first time in three weeks.

He doesn't tell Remus. Just sends a vague text to James about a cold and disappears into the city.

He doesn’t want to be seen.

He wears a hoodie, keeps his head down, moves like someone without a destination.

He doesn’t remember when the coke stopped working.

When the high stopped being enough.

But it did.

And now all he feels is this weight in his chest—like grief with no name. Like panic without an exit.

He tries to journal. Tries to write music again. Tries to eat.

None of it sticks.

He hasn’t spoken to Peter in days. He’s stopped laughing with James. Even Remus’s patience is starting to fray.

He feels like a ghost.

So he follows a number someone gave him months ago. A friend of a friend. Sketchy, fast-talking, always carrying.

He meets him behind a laundromat at sunset.

He doesn’t ask what it is.

Not really.

He doesn’t care.

He just wants it to work.

He smokes it this time. Alone.

It hits like a train.

Colors tilt. His heart claws at his chest. He can feel his teeth. His own skin tastes like sugar and lightning and glass.

And for a moment—God, a full aching moment—he feels alive.

Not numb. Not tired. Not lost.

Alive.

It doesn’t last.

But the comedown is quiet.

Like falling through clouds.

And Sirius tells himself it was worth it.

-; ━━━

The next morning, his mouth is dry and his eyes are cracked open and the sunlight feels like knives.

He’s shaking.

Remus knocks.

Sirius doesn’t answer.

He makes it to the bathroom and throws up until his throat bleeds.

He doesn’t cry.

He just stares at his reflection until it stops looking like him.

-; ━━━

Over the next week, he ghosts everyone.

Remus tries.

He texts. Leaves tea. Says things like I’m here when you’re ready.

Sirius doesn’t answer.

James calls, leaves a voicemail: “You okay, man? You just… disappeared. You said you were clean. If something’s going on, just tell me.”

Sirius deletes it.

Peter corners him at school on Friday, after Sirius finally shows up looking like death.

Peter says, “You don’t have to pretend. I know something’s wrong.”

Sirius smiles too wide. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

Peter swallows hard. “You’re not.”

Sirius walks away.

-; ━━━

That night, he uses again.

Meth, this time. On purpose. Again.

He stares at the ceiling after. Music blaring in his ears. Thoughts racing. Skin buzzing.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

He doesn’t care.

All he knows is that it worked—for a second.

And that’s all he needs.

Just one second at a time.

-; ━━━

He doesn’t remember the last time he slept more than an hour without waking up screaming.

Sometimes, he dreams about running. Or drowning. Or his mother’s hands. Sometimes, the dream is just a sound. Just the low, endless throb of bass echoing off a concrete wall. Sometimes it’s James’ voice saying his name like it means something. Like it still could.

He doesn’t remember what peace feels like.

He thinks maybe he used to have it—when they were fifteen and Remus sat beside him on the roof with a blanket over both their shoulders and a cassette player between them. When the world was still something that felt possible.

Now it’s just... heavy.

Every minute is a weight around his neck.

-; ━━━

It’s early September, school starting again. Sirius stands in the shower long after the water goes cold. Staring at the tile, arms wrapped around his middle. He thinks maybe if he stays there long enough, the noise in his head will fade.

It doesn’t.

It never does.

He gets out eventually, water dripping from his hair to the floor. He doesn’t dry off. Doesn’t even really move. Just stands there in his towel, staring at the mirror. His reflection looks like someone else. Someone thin and twitchy and hollow-eyed.

He doesn’t recognize that version of himself anymore.

But it’s the only one left.

-; ━━━

Remus is already in the kitchen, making tea.

He doesn’t say anything when Sirius comes in. Just pours him a cup and slides it across the table. Sirius sits down slowly, the chair creaking under him. He cradles the mug in both hands like it’s the only warm thing left in the world.

“Thanks,” he mumbles.

Remus nods, barely.

Sirius watches the steam rise. “Didn’t sleep.”

“I heard.”

A beat of silence.

“I’m okay,” Sirius lies, softly.

Remus doesn’t argue. That’s what makes it worse. He just nods again and turns back to the stove. The kettle begins to whistle faintly behind him, like it’s trying not to cry.

-; ━━━

School is… surreal.

Too bright. Too loud. Too many eyes.

Sirius walks through the halls like a ghost in ripped jeans and a black hoodie, fingers twitching at his sides. His hands never stop moving anymore. His brain never does either.

He sees James at their usual spot outside the auditorium.

It takes everything in him to keep walking.

But James sees him, and calls out, “Oi! Where’ve you been, you bastard?”

So Sirius stops.

He turns around slowly, tugging the sleeves of his hoodie over his shaking hands. Forces a smile. Walks over.

They fall into step beside each other like they haven’t been drifting apart all summer. Like Sirius didn’t scream at him in the parking lot two months ago. Like James didn’t almost cry.

Peter joins them halfway to lunch.

“So,” James says, nudging him. “You clean now, yeah?”

Sirius swallows.

He nods. “Yeah. It’s been a while.”

James looks relieved. Peter does too.

Sirius hates himself a little more.

-; ━━━

He stays “clean” for four days.

Four.

He tries. He really does.

But his body hums. It hums in the silence. In the noise. In the cracks between conversations. It vibrates with a hunger that won’t go away. That settles in his bones. That whispers promises in the middle of algebra class.

He goes to the park on the fifth night.

Just to walk, he tells himself. Just to be out of the house.

But he knows exactly where his feet are going. Knows exactly what’s waiting on the other side of the bridge. He doesn’t even hesitate.

It’s easy, this time.

He hands over the cash with shaking fingers and doesn’t even ask what it is. He doesn’t want to know.

It’s easier not knowing.

The high comes fast and furious, and it fills him like light, like heat, like everything he’s been missing. For the first time in weeks, his brain goes quiet. Everything stops hurting.

He feels invincible.

Untouchable.

He knows it won’t last.

But for now, it’s enough.

-; ━━━

He sneaks back into Remus’ house at 3 a.m., stepping over the creaky stair.

He lies on the floor of the bathroom, hands trembling. His teeth chatter.

He tells himself this is the last time.

He always says that.

And he never means it.

-; ━━━

Remus doesn’t say anything the next morning.

He doesn’t look at Sirius when he makes tea. Doesn’t offer him breakfast. Just stands at the stove like he’s alone in the room.

Sirius wants to say something.

But instead, he drinks his tea and goes to school.

He laughs too loud in first period.

He tells a joke at lunch.

He looks James in the eye when he says, “Still clean.”

He lies to Peter about being tired. Says he’s just stressed. That he hasn’t adjusted to school yet.

And the worst part?

They believe him.

They want to believe him so badly that they don’t look close enough.

They don’t see the way his fingers shake when he writes. The way his skin looks too pale, too thin. The way he keeps scratching at his arms, over and over like something’s crawling beneath his skin.

They don’t want to see it.

So they don’t.

-; ━━━

That night, he lies awake staring at the ceiling, wondering how long he can keep this up.

How long until someone really sees him.

How long until he doesn’t want to be seen at all.

He presses his palms against his eyes until the world turns red.

Then he curls into himself, like maybe he can disappear.

Chapter Text

It starts after Remus finds the pipe in the bottom of Sirius’ backpack.

He hadn’t been snooping. He was just looking for a charger, an extra notebook, something ordinary. Something normal. But instead he finds a glass stem, barely hidden, black at the end. It smells like scorched metal. His hands shake when he sets it on the kitchen counter.

He waits until Sirius gets home.

Waits, quietly, in the living room. Doesn’t even turn on the lights. Just sits there in the dark, his heart thudding in his chest.

When the door opens and Sirius stumbles in, hoodie unzipped, face pale and sweating, Remus doesn’t speak. Not right away.

Sirius stops short.

“…Hey,” he says after a moment, like nothing’s wrong. Like his breath isn’t uneven. Like his pupils aren’t wrong.

Remus lifts the pipe into the air with two fingers.

Sirius freezes.

And then he laughs. It's a terrible sound—thin, hollow, exhausted. “That’s old,” he says. “I forgot it was even in there.”

Remus doesn't blink.

“Don’t lie to me again,” he says, voice like broken glass. “Please. Don’t.”

Sirius looks at the floor.

Then he shrugs, and it kills Remus more than if he’d screamed. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to stop,” Remus says, and his voice breaks, just once. “I want you to get clean. For real. Let me help you.”

“You can’t,” Sirius says softly. “No one can.”

Remus stands. Crosses the room. Puts both hands on Sirius’ shoulders. “Then let me try.”

-; ━━━

The next morning, Sirius doesn’t use.

And then the next.

It gets bad almost immediately.

The third day, he can’t stop sweating. He changes shirts twice. Showers and says he still feels dirty.

The fourth day, he throws up twice and doesn’t eat. He flinches when Remus touches his wrist. He keeps muttering to himself under his breath, like he’s trying to hold a conversation in his head and out here at the same time.

The fifth day is the worst.

He screams into his pillow for twenty minutes until his voice is gone.

His hands shake so badly that he spills tea on himself and starts crying—not because of the burn, but because he can’t hold the mug.

Remus stays with him through all of it.

Wipes his forehead when he’s sweating.

Holds him through the tremors.

Sleeps on the floor next to the bed with one hand resting on Sirius’ back so he knows he’s not alone.

-; ━━━

But it isn’t a movie. It’s not clean and bright and full of healing.

It’s ugly.

It’s painful.

It’s watching someone come apart in your arms and not being able to stop it.

It’s Sirius whispering, “I want to die,” into Remus’ shirt one night. Not for attention. Not dramatically. Just because he means it.

It’s the way his skin looks gray. The way his ribs stick out.

The way he says, “I’m so sorry,” again and again like a prayer.

And the way Remus replies, “I love you,” every single time.

-; ━━━

On the sixth day, Sirius punches the bathroom mirror.

Blood drips down his knuckles. He looks at it for a long time, breathing hard, pupils shaking. “I want it,” he says. “I want it so bad.”

Remus stands behind him, heart in his throat.

Sirius turns to him, eyes wide and feral and empty.

“I don’t know how to not want it.”

“I know,” Remus says.

He steps forward. Wraps his arms around Sirius’ shaking frame. Holds him like he’s a lifeline. Like if he lets go, Sirius will vanish.

“You don’t have to know how yet,” he whispers. “You just have to keep trying.”

Sirius doesn’t say anything.

He cries instead.

Not loud. Not messy.

Just silent tears that fall against Remus’ collarbone until they both sink to the cold tile floor.

-; ━━━

Sixteen days clean.

Sirius counts them on his fingers.

He stares at the ceiling most nights, whispering the number like it’s a shield. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. He starts over sometimes when the panic gets too loud.

The days don’t feel like victories. They feel like white-knuckled survival.

There’s no parade for not dying. There’s no trophy for not using.

There’s just the ache behind his eyes and the quiet in Remus’ flat, and the soft way the tea kettle whistles in the morning. There’s the soreness in his bones. The way light still hurts his eyes. The way his limbs feel full of sand.

But it’s something.

-; ━━━

“Do you want to walk?” Remus asks one morning. It's been raining.

Sirius shrugs. “Will I die if I say no?”

Remus offers a thin smile. “You’re not funny.”

Sirius cracks a ghost of one. “I used to be.”

“You’ll be again.”

Sirius looks down at his hands. He still has a scab across his knuckles from the mirror.

“You think so?” he asks, quietly.

Remus reaches for his fingers, curling his own around them. His grip is warm. Grounding.

“I have to,” he says.

-; ━━━

They walk. It’s not far — just to the park. It’s damp and empty, all the kids still in school, summer officially over. The leaves are starting to turn. Sirius watches them fall, one by one, like they’re taking their time saying goodbye.

His hood is up. Hands in his sleeves. He doesn’t like people seeing him.

Remus sits on the swings, and Sirius leans against the pole.

“James texted me,” Remus says finally, tone cautious.

Sirius doesn’t answer.

“He… he asked if you were okay.”

Still nothing.

Remus waits a moment longer, then sighs. “He misses you, Pads.”

Sirius flinches like it’s a slap. “He’s better off.”

“You don’t believe that.”

Sirius kicks at a pile of wet leaves. “I do.”

Remus stands. Walks over. Puts a hand on the side of Sirius’ face, gently, tilting his chin up until their eyes meet.

“I don’t know what to say to make you believe you’re worth more than this,” he whispers. “But you are.”

Sirius' throat works. He looks away.

“…Seventeen,” he says finally. “Today.”

Remus nods. “Seventeen.”

-; ━━━

But it gets harder again.

It’s the nature of things: they come in waves.

There are moments that almost feel like peace — the quiet between storms. Sirius sleeps through the night once. He eats breakfast and doesn't gag it back up. He hums under his breath brushing his teeth. He lets Remus read to him out loud from a book they used to love.

And then, two days later, he wakes up with his heart racing, soaked in sweat, nails bitten down to the quick, shaking so hard he drops his water glass trying to drink.

Remus finds him on the floor of the bathroom, knees to his chest, breathing like the air is too thick to swallow.

“I can’t do it,” Sirius whispers, again and again. “I can’t do this anymore.”

Remus kneels beside him. Doesn’t try to fix it. Just rubs small circles into Sirius’ back.

“You are doing it,” he says softly. “Right now.”

Sirius lets out a broken, awful sound.

Remus stays with him until the shaking stops.

-; ━━━

That night, Sirius doesn’t speak. He lies curled up on the couch, eyes open, blanket tucked to his chin. Remus brings him tea and puts on quiet music.

At one point, Sirius reaches for his hand without looking.

Remus takes it.

They sit like that for an hour.

No words.

Just hands.

-; ━━━

When you're trying to get clean, time slows. Everything hurts louder. There’s no fast-forward button.

Sirius is learning that the hard way.

But he’s learning.

He makes it to day twenty-one.

Then twenty-three.

And on the twenty-fifth day, Remus finds him crying in the kitchen at 3 a.m. because the smell of a neighbor smoking something through the wall triggered a panic attack he couldn’t breathe through.

But he didn’t use.

That counts for something.

Doesn’t it?

It happens on a Tuesday.

No big fight. No massive breakdown. Just a quiet, gray-skied Tuesday, the kind where the air smells like rain and the whole world feels like it’s pressing its palm against your chest.

Sirius sits on the floor in the living room, cross-legged, staring at a cold mug of tea. His fingers are around the cup, but he hasn’t sipped it.

Remus sits across from him, not saying anything.

They’ve been like that for ten minutes.

Remus has learned not to fill the silence. Sirius talks more when he doesn’t have to.

Finally, Sirius exhales through his nose. “You still want me to go.”

It’s not a question.

Remus doesn’t jump. He doesn’t pounce.

He just nods, once.

“I think it might help,” he says carefully. “Not everything. Not all at once. But—maybe a little.”

Sirius is quiet again.

The rain starts—soft against the windows.

And then, so softly Remus almost doesn’t hear it:

“Okay.”

Remus blinks. “Okay?”

Sirius nods, still not looking at him. He presses his thumb against the lip of the mug. “We can… set something up. Or whatever.”

Remus doesn’t speak right away.

He’s learned not to rush hope, either.

Instead, he swallows the sudden lump in his throat and says, “Alright. We’ll find someone good. Someone who knows what they’re doing. No pressure.”

Sirius gives a short, dry laugh. “Too late for that.”

“Not that kind of pressure,” Remus says gently. “Not the kind that makes you smaller.”

Sirius finally looks up. His eyes are rimmed with shadows, but there’s a spark behind them today. Tired, yes—but present.

“Okay,” he says again, firmer this time.

And then he sets the tea down, leans his head against the couch behind him, and closes his eyes.

Remus doesn’t press. Doesn’t say I’m proud of you, though he is.

Instead, he shifts closer. Lets their knees brush.

Just enough contact to remind Sirius he isn’t alone.

-; ━━━

Three days later, Remus drives him to the first appointment.

The building is unremarkable—red bricks, plain windows, a receptionist with big glasses and a kind voice. Sirius bounces his leg the whole time in the waiting room. Remus holds his hand under the clipboard while Sirius fills out the forms.

When his name is called, Sirius stands like he might bolt. But he doesn’t.

He turns to Remus. “Will you… wait?”

Remus nods. “I’ll be right here.”

-; ━━━

The session is only forty-five minutes.

When Sirius comes back out, his expression is unreadable.

He doesn’t speak until they’re halfway down the block.

Then:

“She said I probably have something,” he mutters. “Like… actual, real stuff. Chemical imbalance. Trauma stuff. Borderline personality disorder, maybe. I told her about my family. The coke. The meth.”

Remus keeps his eyes on the road. “That’s a lot to talk about.”

“Yeah.” Sirius scratches at his arm. “She asked if I feel like I don’t have a self. Like I just… become whatever people want.”

Remus glances at him.

“And do you?” he asks quietly.

Sirius stares out the window.

“…Sometimes,” he says. “Sometimes I don’t think I’m real.”

The car is quiet for a while.

Then Remus reaches over and squeezes Sirius’ knee. Doesn’t say I know. Doesn’t say it’s okay. Just squeezes.

And that’s enough.

For now.

-; ━━━

The waiting room is quieter this time. Sirius still picks at the sleeve of his jumper, still fidgets with the hem, still checks the door twice, but he doesn’t look like he’s ready to run anymore.

Remus sits beside him with a book in his lap, not reading.

“Sirius Black?” the therapist—Dr. Adler—says from the hallway.

He stands. Swallows once.

Remus looks up and gives him the smallest smile. Not proud. Not reassuring.

Just there.

That’s enough to make Sirius walk forward.

-; ━━━

Dr. Adler’s office is warm. Bookshelves. Soft lamp. Two chairs angled toward each other. A box of tissues he didn’t touch last time.

Sirius sits. Dr. Adler gives him a moment. Waits until he settles, hands twisted in his lap.

“So,” she says gently. “Forty-Five days today.”

He shrugs one shoulder. “Yeah.”

“How does that feel?”

Sirius glances out the window.

“…Heavy,” he says. “And also… like it’s nothing. Like it doesn’t count.”

“Why doesn’t it count?”

He shrugs again, but slower this time. “I still want it. Every day.”

Dr. Adler nods. “That’s valid.”

“I think about it when I wake up. I think about it when I walk past the bathroom. I—I dream about it. Sometimes I wake up sweating, and for a second I’m sure I used. Like I can feel it. In my teeth. In my veins.”

His voice trembles.

She doesn’t interrupt.

“I hate that I want it,” he adds, quieter. “I hate it.”

“That doesn’t make you weak.”

Sirius exhales through his nose. “It makes me feel like a fucking ghost.”

Dr. Adler writes something down, then asks, “Can we go back to what you said last time? About not being real. About not knowing who you are.”

Sirius nods slowly.

“You said sometimes you feel like you become what people need.”

He shifts. Doesn’t look at her. “Yeah.”

“Do you feel that way with Remus?”

Sirius hesitates. “I don’t know. I think—maybe not him. Not anymore. But sometimes I want to be whoever he thinks I am. Like I’m afraid he’ll stop loving me if I don’t keep being… good. Sober. Okay.”

“That’s very common for people with borderline personality disorder,” she says. “Feeling like your self is shaped by the people around you. Feeling like it’s unstable, or inconsistent. Can I ask—do you ever feel like there are different versions of you? Not in a dissociative way necessarily, but like… there’s Good Sirius and Bad Sirius?”

He looks up at her. It’s the first time he really sees her all session.

His eyes are wide. A little scared.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes. Exactly. Like—I can feel myself flipping between them. Good Sirius is calm. Clean. He showers. He makes tea. He tells jokes. Bad Sirius is loud and mean and sleeps until 4 p.m. and lies to everyone and he doesn’t care.”

“Do they talk to each other?”

Sirius’s throat works. “…I think they hate each other.”

Dr. Adler nods. “That’s part of what we’re working with. Identity disturbance is a core part of BPD. So is emotional intensity. Rapid mood shifts. You mentioned mania last time?”

Sirius wraps his arms around himself. “Yeah. Sometimes I feel like I’m exploding. Like I’m glowing. Like I could rip off my skin and it wouldn’t be fast enough. Like I’m too much for my body.”

“Do you do impulsive things when that happens?”

He swallows. “That’s when I used, usually. Or I hook up with someone. Or I drive fast, or steal something. Or scream at someone I love. And then the next day I feel disgusting.”

Dr. Adler writes again, but not a lot. She looks at him.

“You’re not disgusting.”

Sirius’s eyes flicker.

“I know that’s hard to believe,” she says, “but this is your brain doing what it was trained to do. Fight, flight, survive. You had trauma. Your attachment systems are dysregulated. None of that makes you broken. It makes you hurt.”

His voice is a whisper. “Will I ever get better?”

She doesn’t lie.

“There’s no cure. But there’s management. Treatment. Skills. Safety nets. Therapy can help. Medication might help too—though that’s your choice. But yes, Sirius. You can get better. You can get back into your body. You can learn how to feel things without drowning in them.”

Sirius is silent.

Then:

“…What if I don’t deserve that?”

“You do,” she says, like a fact. Like gravity.

“You’re here. You’re alive. Forty-five days clean. That means something.”

-; ━━━

When he gets back to the car, he doesn’t say anything right away. Just gets in, buckles his seatbelt, and stares straight ahead.

Remus glances over. “Bad session?”

Sirius shakes his head. His hands are tight in his lap.

“…She said I might have BPD.”

Remus exhales, but not like it’s bad news. “Okay.”

“She said it’s not my fault.”

“It’s not.”

Sirius finally looks at him. His eyes are red but dry.

“She said I can still have a life.”

Remus reaches across the center console and laces their fingers together.

“You will,” he says. “And I’ll be there.”

Sirius doesn’t respond for a long moment.

But then he squeezes Remus’s hand.

Hard.

Like he’s holding onto something real.

Chapter Text

It’s raining again.

That cold, gray kind of rain that makes the whole world feel like it's sinking. The kind that never quite turns into a storm—just lingers, low and heavy, until the air feels like grief.

Sirius watches it through the window.

He hasn’t moved in hours.

There’s a clock ticking behind him. A mug of tea that’s gone cold. His phone vibrates twice on the table—one text from Remus, one from James.

He doesn’t check them.

-; ━━━

He hadn’t planned it.

Not really.

It started slow.

That hum in his brain. That familiar buzz under his skin. The feeling of being inside a body that doesn’t fit—like wearing clothes two sizes too small and not being allowed to take them off.

He hadn’t slept in three nights. He’d been clean for fifty days. He had a coin in his drawer and a list of coping mechanisms on a piece of paper Remus gave him and a standing appointment with Dr. Adler on Thursdays.

He should be fine.

He should feel proud.

Instead, all he feels is wrong.

-; ━━━

The meth is in a drawer he swore he emptied. He doesn’t remember putting it there. Maybe he forgot. Maybe he lied to himself. Maybe he wanted this.

He holds the baggie in his hands for an hour before he touches it. Another hour before he measures. Another before he swallows.

No lines. No glass pipe. Just the tiniest bump.

Just a little.

Just enough to feel something.

He sits on the bathroom floor and waits.

It hits harder than it should.

-; ━━━

The high is wild and awful. He’s crying and laughing and pulling at his own hair. He stares at himself in the mirror and doesn’t recognize his own face. He feels like electricity—like he could explode into light or dissolve into dust. He wants to scream. He wants to tear his own skin off.

He wants it to stop.

He takes more.

And more.

-; ━━━

By the time James is on the doorstep, Sirius is on the floor, twitching, his vision swimming in and out of focus.

He doesn’t hear the knock. Or the second. Or the third.

He doesn’t hear the door open with the spare key Remus left under the planter.

He doesn’t hear James calling his name.

He hears music. Bright and jagged and cruel. He hears his mother’s voice. He hears his own voice saying please.

And then—

“Sirius?”

A pause.

Then:

“Oh my God. Sirius.”

Hands on his shoulders.

“Sirius, can you hear me?”

His vision swims.

James.

He tries to laugh. Or speak. But nothing comes out.

“Sirius, what the fuck—what the fuck did you take?”

He blinks.

James’s face is pale. Wet with rain. He pulls out his phone with shaking hands and dials, voice shaking.

“He’s on something. I think it’s meth. He’s not—he’s not answering. He’s breathing, but he’s—I don’t know how much he took. Please. Please come.”

-; ━━━

Sirius feels the world dim around him. He doesn’t feel fear. Not exactly. It’s too late for that.

He feels shame.

Shame and exhaustion and a faint whisper in the back of his head that says at least it’ll be over now.

But then James is there. Hands on his face.

“Sirius. Don’t do this. Don’t leave. Don’t fucking leave me.”

And Sirius closes his eyes.

And for the first time in days, he feels something real:

James’s voice. Breaking.

And a hand gripping his so tight it hurts.

-; ━━━

The sky outside the hospital window is pale, dull blue. The kind of color that doesn’t mean anything. The air smells like bleach and plastic, and Sirius’s mouth tastes like metal.

He’s been awake for hours.

Nurses came and went. A doctor checked his vitals. James poked his head in but didn’t stay long—his eyes were too red, too full of something Sirius couldn’t bear to look at.

Remus hadn’t come back.

Sirius told himself that was fine.

He wasn’t sure if he was lying.

-; ━━━

The bathroom mirror is loose in its frame.

He notices that first.

He’s not thinking clearly. His mind is slippery, like water between his fingers. The voice in his head is quiet but constant: You ruined everything. You are nothing. This is what you do.

He doesn’t remember getting out of bed. Doesn’t remember limping into the bathroom with the IV still taped to his arm. He only remembers the mirror—how it bends slightly when he presses on the bottom corner with shaking fingers.

It pops forward.

Just a bit.

His fingers curl underneath.

And then—

Crack.

Glass falls.

-; ━━━

His hands are cut before he even picks up a shard. Blood drips onto the tile, quick and red.

It doesn’t hurt.

He finds the painkillers in the drawer. Unlabeled. The bottle must’ve been left by mistake—something someone forgot to lock away. There are eight white pills. He swallows them dry.

His wrist bleeds freely by then.

It’s quiet.

Not peaceful. Just empty.

That’s all he wants. The emptiness.

-; ━━━

The nurse finds him seven minutes later.

She screams.

And then everything is noise. Running. Yelling. Hands on him, pressing gauze to his skin. A needle. A monitor wailing. Someone calling for security.

He closes his eyes and floats.

Let it end, he thinks. Just let it end.

But it doesn’t.

-; ━━━

Six hours later.

Sirius is in a different room.

The windows don’t open. The walls are soft and pale. There are no sharp corners. No glass. No drawer handles.

He’s in paper scrubs.

His wrists are wrapped.

He’s too tired to cry.

A new doctor comes in—a woman with kind eyes and a clipboard she doesn’t look at. She sits in the chair across from him like he’s not broken. Like he’s not a mess someone had to scrape off the floor.

She says his name gently.

“Sirius.”

He doesn’t answer.

She waits anyway.

“I’m Dr. Chiang,” she says. “I’m here because you deserve to survive this.”

Sirius closes his eyes.

He doesn’t believe her.

But she stays anyway.
-; ━━━

There are no clocks in the room.

The window is thick plastic—not glass—and the world outside is a blur of grey-blue clouds and rooftops he doesn’t recognize. The bed is flat. The blankets are scratchy. He hasn’t spoken in twelve hours.

Sirius lies still.

Not sleeping.

Not thinking.

Just there.

Existing like a bruise.

-; ━━━

A nurse comes in with meds in a paper cup. She doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t force eye contact. Her voice is practiced, but not cold.

“Do you want your medication, Sirius?”

He stares at the wall.

She waits a moment, then leaves it on the tray beside him.

He doesn’t take them.

-; ━━━

He’s allowed into the common room after a psych tech walks him down the hallway with a gentle hand on his shoulder. The lights are too bright. The furniture is all plastic, in round, cheerful colors that feel like an insult.

He sits at a table in the corner. Alone.

Other patients play cards. One girl paces. A boy his age hums under his breath and stims with a rubber band. No one talks to Sirius.

He doesn’t mind.

He keeps his arms folded over his stomach and watches the clock that ticks too slowly to be real.

-; ━━━

At lunch, he eats three bites of pasta.

The rest goes cold.

No one pushes him.

There’s a kind of stillness in this place that makes him ache. Everyone is floating in their own fog. No judgment. No pretending. Just survival.

He both hates it and understands it.

-; ━━━

Dr. Chiang visits again.

She doesn’t bring the clipboard.

She sits across from him at a table in the observation room, the same soft smile on her face. Her posture is open. Her voice never rises.

“How are you feeling?”

Sirius doesn’t answer.

“That’s okay,” she says. “You don’t have to speak. I’ll just sit with you.”

And she does.

She sits with him for fifteen minutes in silence, her presence steady and unfazed. Before she leaves, she places a small notebook and a pencil on the table beside him.

“If you ever want to write instead,” she says, “this is yours.”

-; ━━━

The hallway lights dim, but never turn off.

Sirius lies on the bed, fully clothed. His fingers twitch at his sides. He hasn’t cried. Not really. He feels like a ghost wearing skin—empty, brittle, almost weightless.

He stares at the ceiling for what feels like hours.

Eventually, he picks up the notebook.

Opens it to the first page.

He writes three words in tiny, shaking pencil:

I’m so tired.

-; ━━━

The fog doesn’t lift.

But it changes shape.

Sirius showers. Stands under the water for twenty minutes until the nurse gently knocks to check in.

He sits in group therapy. Doesn’t speak. Keeps his eyes on the floor.

But he’s there.

He’s there.

That counts for something.

-; ━━━

In the afternoon, Dr. Chiang returns.

He still doesn’t talk. But when she asks if she can read what he wrote, he nods once.

She opens the notebook.

Seven pages. Scribbled, messy, unpunctuated.

Half of it is illegible. The other half is begging.

She reads silently, then sets it down gently.

“I’m glad you wrote it,” she says.

Sirius stares at the corner of the room.

“I don’t want to die,” he says finally, voice barely audible. “But I don’t want to be like this anymore either.”

Dr. Chiang nods. Her eyes don’t change. She doesn’t look pitying.

“I know,” she says.

And somehow, that’s worse.

Because it means it’s real.

-; ━━━

There’s something wrong with the quiet at 4 a.m. in a psych ward.

It doesn’t feel like peace. It feels like pressure. Like the world forgot to breathe.

Sirius lies on the stiff hospital bed with his back to the door. He hasn't slept. His body aches from being still too long. His thoughts have taken on a rhythm again, but it’s the wrong kind—quick and sharp and circular, like flies stuck under glass.

I don’t want to feel like this anymore.
I don’t want to want to die.
I already tried. I’m still here.
Nothing worked. Nothing worked.

He presses his palm flat over his heart and finds it still beating.

Why?

The air is cold.

The lights in the hallway hum.

His stomach lurches with the familiar nausea of morning and withdrawal and shame.

And then—

something breaks.

Not loudly. Not violently.

It breaks the way a glacier does: deep, slow, silent to anyone else but catastrophic to itself.

-; ━━━

He slips out of bed barefoot. The nurse station is quiet. Doors are closed. He knows they check rooms every fifteen minutes.

He’s watched the rhythm.

He’s timed it.

The bathroom door clicks shut behind him. The light flickers.

He walks to the toilet.

His hands shake as he lifts the lid.

He kneels.

And then—without even thinking, like it’s already decided—he plunges his head in and holds himself down.

The water is cold. Choking.

It’s the opposite of a high. It’s the closest thing to silence he can find.

His lungs scream almost instantly. His body thrashes. Some part of him wants to live, still—stupid animal part of him—but his hands grip the sides of the bowl and force stillness.

Don’t come back up.

Just—don’t come back up.

-; ━━━

The door bursts open.

Hands grab him—rough, panicked.

There’s shouting. Cold air. The sound of his own choking.

Water hits the tile.

He’s pulled backward and hits the floor, coughing up water and spit and bile, gasping, crying, lungs seizing with air he didn’t ask for.

He hears his name.

Over and over.

“Sirius. Sirius. Stay with me. Sirius—”

It’s a male nurse—someone he barely remembers seeing before—kneeling over him, soaked, pale, furious and terrified at once.

“What the fuck did you think you were doing?” the man says, voice shaking.

Sirius doesn’t answer.

He’s sobbing too hard.

He curls into himself, water dripping from his hair, wrists cradled against his chest.

He wants to scream. He wants to disappear. He wants to go back and do it better—faster—successfully.

Instead, he just breaks apart on the floor.

-; ━━━

They sedate him this time.

They put him on one-to-one observation. No more time alone. No closed doors. No bathroom without supervision. No privacy.

And still, even as he falls into medicated sleep in clean clothes with warm blankets, Sirius feels nothing but failure.
-; ━━━

James has been crying the whole car ride. Not that he’d admit it.

Remus hasn’t said a word since they got the call.

Neither of them knows what to expect.

They’ve already done this once. Already stood in a sterile hallway and heard the words overdose and methamphetamine and critical condition in monotone voices from doctors who didn’t know Sirius at all.

But this is different.

This time, Sirius chose it again.

This time, he tried in the hospital.

This time, they almost didn’t catch him in time.

Remus keeps pressing his thumb against his knuckles hard enough to bruise.

James keeps whispering, "fuck, fuck, fuck," under his breath like a prayer.

Neither of them asks the nurse if he’s okay. Because “okay” doesn’t mean anything anymore.

-; ━━━

The room is sealed.

A psych tech buzzes them in. They have to leave their phones and keys behind. James’s hands are visibly shaking when he signs the visitor form.

“Only ten minutes,” the nurse says gently. “He’s still sedated.”

They nod.

And then the door opens.

-; ━━━

Sirius looks small in the hospital bed.

That’s the first thing James sees. Not just thin, but folded in. Arms curled toward his chest. Wrists wrapped in fresh gauze. Hair damp, flattened to his forehead.

He doesn’t look like Sirius.

He looks like a body someone left behind.

Remus stands frozen just inside the door.

James moves first.

He walks to the side of the bed and sits down slowly, eyes never leaving Sirius’s face. “Hey,” he says, softly. “I’m here.”

Sirius stirs.

Not fully awake.

Not really asleep.

His eyes flutter, unfocused. Then his mouth moves—barely.

“…you’re not supposed to be here.”

James swallows. “Too bad.”

Sirius exhales. It’s almost a laugh. But it breaks halfway through and turns into a sob.

And James, who has always been the loud one, the brave one, the golden boy—starts to cry again.

He presses his forehead to Sirius’s hand. “You idiot,” he whispers. “You stupid, stupid fuck—I thought you were dead.”

Sirius doesn’t answer. But he doesn’t pull away either.

-; ━━━

Remus still hasn’t moved.

He stands like stone. Pale. Still. Worn.

But when James looks up and meets his eyes, something shatters between them.

Remus walks forward—slowly, deliberately—and sits on the opposite side of the bed. His voice, when it comes, is raw.

“I stayed up all night.”

Sirius flinches.

“I kept thinking…” Remus’s throat closes. “...that maybe I should’ve called. That maybe I should’ve come back.”

Sirius closes his eyes.

Remus leans forward and brushes a lock of hair from Sirius’s forehead. He’s never touched him like this before. Not gently. Not like he might break.

“You’re still here,” Remus says.

It’s not praise.

It’s not forgiveness.

It’s just a fact.

And right now, that’s all Sirius can handle.

-; ━━━

The visit doesn’t last long.

They aren't allowed to stay. He’s under watch. There's a protocol. But when they leave, James is the one who promises to come back tomorrow, and Remus is the one who stands by the door until the very last second, watching Sirius like he’s afraid to blink and lose him again.

And Sirius—barely awake, barely present—nods.

Because the truth is, he doesn’t know what recovery looks like.

But for the first time in days, he’s not entirely sure he wants to die.

That has to count for something.

-; ━━━

The hospital is too quiet again.

Sirius hasn’t slept in two days.

He’d have been off meth for nearly two months now. Fifty-nine days. Sixty, but then he just had to fuck it up. Had to overdose.

Everyone keeps saying how proud they are.

Everyone keeps saying, “You’re doing better.”

Everyone keeps saying, “It’s going to get easier.”

And Sirius smiles. Nods. Drinks the protein shakes. Takes the pills they tell him to take. Goes to group therapy and talks, sometimes. Says all the right things. Even jokes, when he has energy.

But it isn’t getting easier.

It’s getting worse.

There’s this weight on his ribs he can’t describe. Like there’s a scream lodged behind his teeth that will never come out. Like there’s not enough air in the world to make it better. He is thirty pounds of grief in a paper-thin body, and everyone keeps asking him to “just hold on.”

He’s so tired of holding on.

He’s so tired of being here.

-; ━━━

He wakes up from another nightmare with the taste of blood in his mouth. His knuckles are raw from hitting the wall—he doesn’t remember doing it. The nurse said he was shouting, screaming things that didn’t make sense.

They sedated him again.

They keep doing that.

He wonders if they know what it feels like to not want to wake up at all and still be forced to.

-; ━━━

They moved him to a new room. No door to the bathroom. Shatterproof glass. Soft corners.

They think he’s safe.

They don’t understand.

This time, he’s not going to try the way they expect.

-; ━━━

The moment is not cinematic. It is small.

It is early morning. No one is awake yet.

There’s a pen from his journaling group.

It has a metal clip on it. Sharp enough.

He palms it.

Sits on the edge of his bed.

The light outside is still that dull grey of not-quite-sunrise, the hour when no one feels real.

He breathes.

He tells himself this is it. This is the one that will work. This is the one they’ll understand.

He drags the metal across his wrist once.

Then again.

And again.

The third time is deeper.

He feels the warmth before the pain. That blooming heat that always comes first. Then—nothing.

Just silence.

Just blood.

He leans back on the wall and waits.

-; ━━━

But then—

Footsteps.

Too early.

Too soon.

“Sirius?” It’s the morning tech. A young guy. Friendly. Kind of annoying. The one who always offers him an extra muffin.

Sirius tries to move. Tries to hide it.

But it’s too late.

“Shit—”

Everything happens fast after that.

The staff floods in.

He’s pulled forward.

Pressure on his arm.

Yelling.

Nurses with gloves and towels.

He starts crying and doesn’t stop.

Not because he’s dying.

Because he isn’t.

Because again, it didn’t work.

Because he’s still here.

-; ━━━

He wakes up to the smell of antiseptic and the feel of something tight around his wrist.

His first thought isn’t panic.

It’s shame.

Deep, acidic, whole-body shame.

It creeps in through the IV taped to his arm. It coils behind his eyes like smoke. It sinks into the cracks in his spine and settles there like it belongs.

The second thought is Why am I still here?

And then: Why didn’t it work?

And finally—because he’s learned how this goes—Who knows?

-; ━━━

The room is quiet.

Not his usual room.

This one’s different. No window. Cameras in the corner. A tech sits outside the door, staring straight ahead with a clipboard in his lap.

Sirius doesn't move.

He stares at the ceiling.

His body is sore. His throat hurts. He remembers sobbing. Screaming. Clawing at the nurse who grabbed him. He remembers saying he was sorry. Over and over.

He doesn’t remember if he meant it.

-; ━━━

His wrist is bandaged. Fresh gauze. Clean.

The blood is gone, but the feeling isn’t. That open, buzzing void behind his ribs—like something’s missing. Or dead. Or never there in the first place.

He tries to sit up.

The tech knocks on the glass. “Hey—lie down, yeah? Just for now.”

Sirius flinches.

Then obeys.

Of course he does.

That’s the point now, isn’t it?

Be good. Be quiet. Be safe.

Even when you’re not.

-; ━━━

He doesn’t realize he’s crying again until the salt hits his lips.

It’s not like before. No sobs. No sound.

Just wetness he can’t stop.

He curls his fingers under the edge of the blanket and holds on.

There’s no one here to see.

That should make it easier.

It doesn’t.

-; ━━━

The door opens.

It’s Dr. Chiang.

She doesn’t flinch.

She doesn’t frown.

She doesn’t say, "How could you?"

Instead, she sits down slowly in the chair beside the bed and looks at him like a person.

“You’re still here,” she says gently.

Sirius chokes on a laugh. It sounds more like a cough. “You sound disappointed.”

“No,” she says. “I sound relieved.”

That makes it worse.

He turns his face to the wall.

She waits.

And waits.

And when she speaks again, it’s not a question. Just a truth.

“I think we need to change your safety plan.”

He nods, barely.

She nods too.

And then—after a pause—she says, “I called your emergency contacts.”

His stomach flips.

“Both of them.”

No. No no no no.

“They’ll be here in an hour.”

-; ━━━

He presses the heel of his hand to his eyes and groans. “I can’t—I can’t do this again, I can’t see their faces, I can’t look at them—”

Dr. Chiang doesn’t interrupt.

She lets him spiral. Quietly. Cleanly.

And when he’s done shaking, she says, “They’re coming anyway.”

He doesn't respond.

But he doesn’t scream either.

And that, for today, is the closest he can get to yes.

Of course.

-; ━━━

He hears the footsteps before the door opens.

He knows it's them.

There’s something about the rhythm. Familiar. Steady. A little too fast—like they’re trying to outrun what they’re about to see.

Sirius presses his forehead to the wall.

He doesn’t move.

He doesn’t look.

The door opens anyway.

There’s a pause.

Then:

“…Padfoot.”

James.

The nickname hits like a fist.

Sirius flinches.

His voice is barely audible. “Don’t call me that.”

James doesn’t respond.

Neither does Remus.

They just stand in the doorway for a long, awful moment, like they don’t know what to say.

Because what do you say when your best friend tried to slit his wrists in a hospital room?

What do you say when he doesn’t even look at you?

What do you say when he’s already halfway gone?

-; ━━━

Remus is the one who moves first.

He walks to the foot of the bed and crouches down until he’s eye-level with Sirius’s hunched body.

He doesn’t reach out.

He just looks at him. Quiet. Careful.

“Hey,” he says softly.

Sirius doesn’t answer.

“You’re here.”

Sirius laughs. It sounds like a cough again. “For now.”

Remus doesn’t flinch. “That’s enough.”

Sirius turns his head finally, just slightly, enough to meet his eyes.

He looks like a ghost. Sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, the bandage peeking out from under the cuff of his sleeve. There’s a smear of dried blood near his elbow he must’ve missed. He hasn’t shaved in days.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

Remus breathes in, like he’s about to speak.

But James cuts in instead.

“No,” he says harshly.

Sirius tenses.

James walks forward, his jaw tight. He doesn’t sit. He doesn’t kneel. He stands at the edge of the bed like it’s a battlefield.

“You don’t get to say that and mean it unless you’re gonna fight, Sirius. Unless you’re gonna try. Not just show up. Not just exist.”

Sirius blinks.

His voice cracks.

“I did try.”

“I know,” James says. “I know you did. And I know it’s not your fault. But you don’t get to check out again. You don’t get to leave. You’re not just ours when you’re clean.”

That breaks something in Sirius.

He curls forward slowly, one hand over his face. His ribs shake.

Remus places a hand on the blanket—close, but not touching him.

“We’re here,” he says, barely above a whisper. “And we’re staying.”

Sirius’s voice is ruined when he finally speaks again.

“I don’t want to be me anymore.”

James kneels now.

“Then don’t. Be ours for a while.”

Sirius cries again.

He doesn't remember the last time someone held space for him like this and didn’t look away.

-; ━━━

They don’t say much else.

There aren’t speeches. There’s no plan. Just James sitting beside him, picking at the hem of the hospital sheet. Just Remus watching every breath like it might disappear.

Dr. Chiang gives them ten extra minutes.

When the nurse finally comes to take them out, Sirius looks at her and says, “Can they come back tomorrow?”

The nurse nods.

And that, somehow, is the bravest thing Sirius has done in days.

-; ━━━

Sirius hasn’t eaten much all morning.

His tray is still sitting on the rolling table: a half-eaten banana, some plain scrambled eggs, and a cup of untouched orange juice that’s slowly warming under the fluorescents.

He doesn’t feel hungry.

He doesn’t feel anything.

That’s part of what they say, isn’t it? The numbness. The flatness. Post-attempt depression like molasses in your limbs.

He stares at the food without seeing it.

He still hasn’t brushed his teeth.

-; ━━━

There’s a knock at the door.

This time, he looks up.

James.

No Remus.

Just James.

He looks tired. Like he hasn’t slept. His hair is messy, and his hoodie’s inside out, and there’s a barely-folded visitor’s badge tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

“Hey,” James says, stepping inside.

Sirius doesn’t answer.

He doesn’t say anything at all.

James sighs, closes the door gently behind him, and sits in the plastic chair near the window. For a minute, it’s quiet. Sirius thinks maybe that’s all it’ll be.

Then James says, too casually, “You didn’t eat.”

Sirius shrugs.

James’s jaw twitches.

Another pause.

“You look like shit.”

Sirius huffs something between a laugh and a breath. “Thanks.”

James leans forward, his elbows on his knees.

“I’ve been reading about it,” he says. “Meth withdrawal. Suicide ideation. Borderline. All of it.”

Sirius closes his eyes.

“Stop,” he mutters.

James ignores him.

“You’ve been clean fifty-nine days. That’s two months. You almost made it. Why now?”

Sirius flinches.

“James, don’t.”

“No, really,” James snaps. “Why the fuck now, Sirius?”

Sirius looks at him. Eyes red. Mouth dry. “I was tired.”

“That’s not a fucking answer.”

“I didn’t have one.”

James stands. His chair screeches back against the tile. “I came yesterday. I sat here. I told you I loved you. And the first thing you do is try again?”

Sirius’s voice is quiet. “You think I wanted to?”

“I think you chose to. Again. You—you looked at yourself and decided we wouldn’t miss you.”

Sirius glares at the floor. His throat burns.

“I didn’t want to wake up, James.”

“And I didn’t want to find out my best friend slit his wrist with a fucking pen clip.” James’s voice cracks. “But here we are!”

Silence.

Heavy. Dull. Full of heat.

James breathes hard, chest rising and falling like he’s trying not to cry.

And Sirius just whispers, “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

James shakes his head. “It’s not about what you wanted anymore. You’ve been lying to me for months. You lied when you were using, you lied after the overdose, and you’re lying right now, pretending you’re better, when you’re still trying to die.”

“I’m not—”

“Yes, you are!” James’s hands are shaking. “You don’t even see it, do you?”

Sirius doesn’t answer.

James looks at him for a long, gutting moment. Then says, quieter now, almost broken, “You scared the shit out of me, Pads.”

Sirius swallows.

And that, somehow, is worse than all the shouting.

-; ━━━

James turns away.

He walks to the door.

Before he opens it, Sirius says, barely audible, “You should stop coming.”

James pauses.

Turns back.

“No,” he says firmly. “You don’t get to push me away for comfort. You want to hate yourself, fine. But I’m still going to show up.”

And then he leaves.

-; ━━━

Sirius doesn’t cry.

He just sits back on the bed and stares at the ceiling, the words echoing in his ears like they were branded there:

You want to hate yourself, fine. But I’m still going to show up.

And for the first time since the second attempt, Sirius doesn’t feel numb.

He feels like he’s bleeding again.

-; ━━━

The nurse finds Dr. Chiang in the staff room, coffee gone cold in her hand, paperwork spread across her lap like a second skin. She blinks when the nurse knocks and says, “Mr. Black is asking for you. Says it’s urgent.”

She’s halfway down the hall before she realizes she’s walking faster than usual.

When she reaches Room 213, Sirius is sitting upright in bed, arms wrapped tightly around his knees. He looks… wrecked. Not just tired. Ravaged. His hands are trembling, but he’s clearly trying to look calm.

He nods when she comes in.

“Hi,” he says. His voice is sandpaper.

“Hi, Sirius,” she says gently, taking a seat. “What’s going on?”

He doesn’t answer right away.

His eyes flick to the door, then back to her. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

His jaw clenches. “If I tell you to take someone off my contact list… like—permanently, does that mean they can’t come visit?”

Dr. Chiang studies him. “Yes. If you request to revoke visitation, it’s your legal right. As long as you’re considered competent to make that decision.”

Sirius’s throat bobs.

He looks her dead in the eye and says, “Take James Potter off. I don’t want him here.”

Dr. Chiang is quiet.

She watches him for a long moment. Not judging. Just seeing.

“Sirius,” she says gently, “can I ask why?”

Sirius’s voice cracks. “Because I hurt him. Because he’s angry. Because he shouldn’t have to see me like this again.”

Dr. Chiang doesn’t react.

“And Remus,” he adds, rushing now. “Can you—can you call him? I want to see him. But not James. Please. Don’t tell him I said this. Just make it official.”

She nods slowly. “Okay. I’ll honor that.”

He exhales in relief.

But she isn’t finished.

“I’ll also ask this: Are you doing this to punish him, or yourself?”

Sirius doesn’t answer.

He just pulls the blanket over his shoulders and turns away.

-; ━━━

6:21 p.m.

Remus gets the call.

He shows up an hour later with no questions asked. No James. No dramatics.

He walks into the room, sits down, and just takes Sirius’s hand.

Sirius’s eyes are red.

“I asked them to keep him out,” he whispers.

“I know,” Remus says.

Sirius curls tighter into himself. “He’s going to hate me.”

“No,” Remus replies, squeezing his hand. “He’s going to grieve you. That’s worse.”

Sirius presses his forehead to Remus’s arm.

And doesn’t say anything for a long, long time.

-; ━━━

Sirius doesn’t know if he slept.

There were hours where his eyes were closed, but his thoughts were a wet, tangled fog that wouldn’t let him go under. At one point, the nurse came in and gently offered him tea. He didn’t drink it.

He hasn’t changed out of the hospital-issue pajama pants and long-sleeve cotton shirt. They itch around the collar. He hasn’t brushed his hair, which is flat and dull and still smells faintly of antiseptic from the night of the overdose.

He’s staring at the wall when there’s a quiet knock at the door.

He doesn’t answer.

But it opens anyway.

Remus steps in. A little sleep-deprived. His jumper is fraying at the cuffs. He’s holding something.

“I brought you something,” he says, as he shuts the door behind him.

Sirius blinks.

Remus walks over without fanfare and holds it out.

It’s a sweater. Old, thick wool. Slightly oversized. Brown with thin cream stripes near the wrists. There’s a small hole in the right sleeve that looks like it was patched a decade ago.

Sirius just stares at it.

Remus shrugs. “You always used to steal it, remember?”

Sirius’s throat goes tight.

“I… yeah.”

“You said it smelled like cinnamon and coffee and whatever I was reading that day.”

Sirius takes it with both hands. Slowly. Carefully.

His fingers brush the collar. It still smells like Remus.

The memory makes something twist in his gut.

He doesn’t look up when he asks, “Why are you still here?”

Remus sits down next to him. Close. Not too close.

He answers like it’s the simplest truth in the world.

“Because I love you.”

Sirius clenches the sweater in his lap.

“I lied,” he says after a beat. “About everything. For so long. I was high while you were holding me. I told you I was clean. I told James I was fine. I even told my psychiatrist I didn’t want to die. And now…”

His voice splinters.

Remus waits.

Sirius keeps his eyes down.

“I don’t deserve this.”

Remus doesn’t argue.

He just says, “That may be true. But it’s not your decision to make.”

And for a moment, neither of them speaks.

Sirius runs his fingers over the stitching on the sleeve.

He presses it to his face and breathes in.

He doesn’t cry.

But he doesn’t have to.

Remus shifts closer, and for the first time in days, Sirius leans into him. Not all the way. Just enough to feel someone’s warmth beside his own.

And that’s all Remus needs.

-; ━━━

The hospital window is frosted at the corners, the trees outside black and leafless against the pale gray sky. There’s no snow left—just crusty patches on the grass, half-melted.

Sirius is curled up in bed, wearing the sweater Remus brought him.

Remus is sitting in the chair beside him, holding a book, but not reading it. He’s watching Sirius instead. Letting him speak when he’s ready.

Sirius finally breaks the silence with a flat, dry laugh.

“We missed so much fucking school.”

Remus glances up.

“It’s February break right now,” he says gently.

Sirius exhales. It sounds halfway to a sob.

“That doesn’t help.”

Remus offers a tired smile. “You didn’t fail out, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Sirius doesn’t answer right away. He just pulls the sleeves of the sweater over his hands, hiding his fingers.

“Will I still be able to graduate?”

There’s something so small in the way he asks it. So childlike.

Remus sits forward, placing the book aside.

“Of course, Sirius. We’ll make up what we can. James already talked to McGonagall—she said they’re willing to do everything possible to keep you caught up. Private tutoring. Modified exams. Hell, I’ll teach you if I have to.”

Sirius swallows hard.

He still doesn’t believe it.

He wants to. He just… doesn’t.

“I’m supposed to go home,” he says quietly. “They said I’m doing better. That I’ve been safe long enough. That if I meet with Dr. Chiang three times a week and keep checking in with the nurse, I can go.”

Remus nods.

Sirius looks out the window again.

“I’m scared,” he admits, voice low. “I don’t know how to… do it. Life. Everything feels so close again.”

Remus leans forward, resting his elbow on the edge of the bed.

“You don’t have to do it all at once,” he says. “Just the next thing. And then the next. We’ll help you.”

Sirius blinks fast. His face crumples for a moment, but he doesn’t cry.

He’s too dry for that now.

But he leans forward and rests his forehead on Remus’s shoulder.

Not collapsing.

Just touching.

Like maybe, just maybe, he’s starting to believe someone will catch him if he does.

Chapter Text

The air smells like mud and thawed bark, like the ghost of winter still lingering in the breeze. It’s April break, and the sunlight has finally stopped biting. It’s warm in a soft, early-spring kind of way—light jacket weather. Open windows. Rain boots on back steps.

Sirius sits on the back porch of Remus’s house, sweater sleeves pushed up, cup of chamomile tea cradled in his hands.

Sixty days.

Two months.

It feels impossible. It also feels like nothing.

He doesn’t know what to do with it. Doesn’t know what it means.

Remus is inside, making something with lemon in it—tea bread or scones, Sirius doesn’t know. He’d offered to help, but Remus just kissed the top of his head and said, “Sit in the sun. You look like you need it.”

And so here he is.

Sixty days.

He pulls his sleeves back down.

Behind the screen door, there’s the soft hum of the radio and Remus humming along, off-tune but familiar. It’s grounding. Like a heartbeat in another room.

The door creaks open behind him.

Sirius expects Remus.

It’s James.

He stands awkwardly in the doorway, holding a can of cream soda and a plastic bag from the corner shop. His hair’s longer again, curls soft and unruly.

Sirius blinks. “Hey.”

“Hey,” James echoes.

They look at each other for a beat too long. Then Sirius scoots over on the steps.

“Sit if you want.”

James does. Slowly. Cautiously.

He opens the cream soda and hands it to Sirius, who trades him the tea.

James nods toward the house. “Remus called me.”

Sirius nods. “I asked him to.”

Another pause.

James fidgets with the label on the soda can. “Sixty days,” he says softly.

Sirius shrugs.

James looks at him.

“No, Padfoot. Sixty days. That’s… that’s huge.”

Sirius swallows hard.

“I’m still terrified all the time,” he admits. “I think about using every day. Sometimes I have dreams where I do and I wake up feeling like I already relapsed. I still don’t want to be here, sometimes.”

James nods.

“But you are.”

Sirius takes a breath.

“I am.”

They sit there for a while. Let the quiet stretch between them, not uncomfortable, just full of everything they can’t say yet.

After a few minutes, the screen door opens again and Remus emerges, holding a mismatched tray with three plates and a small lemon drizzle loaf he clearly baked in a rush.

“Thought we could celebrate in the gayest, gentlest way possible,” he says, grinning as he sets it down. “With pastries and soft drinks like we’re eighty.”

Sirius lets out a laugh that surprises even him. Not bitter. Not forced. Just—real.

James grins. “Sounds perfect.”

Remus sits down beside Sirius, and for the first time in weeks, Sirius lets himself lean into both of them. One shoulder on each.

The lemon loaf is warm. The breeze smells like new grass. The sun is low, and none of them mention how it’ll set soon.

For now, it’s enough.

-; ━━━

Sirius can’t sleep.

The room’s too quiet, even with the sound machine on—set to ocean waves, though he doesn’t remember picking it. He’s lying on top of the blankets in one of Remus’s sweatshirts, staring up at the ceiling. His chest feels too full. Not bad. Just stretched. Fragile.

The glowing red numbers on the alarm clock say 1:37 a.m.

There’s a faint creak outside the door. A pause. Then a soft knock.

Sirius blinks. “Yeah?”

The door opens.

It’s James, in flannel pajama pants and an old “Class of 2022” t-shirt from middle school. His curls are flattened on one side, like he’d already been asleep.

“You up?” he asks, quiet.

Sirius nods. “Yeah.”

James steps in but hesitates near the door.

“You can sit,” Sirius says, scooting over. “You don’t have to ask.”

James settles onto the floor beside the bed, leaning back against the frame. He looks like he wants to say something but doesn’t know how.

Sirius speaks first.

“I’m sorry.”

James doesn’t answer at first.

“I lied to you,” Sirius says. His voice cracks halfway through. “All the time. I was using almost every weekend. During school, too. I told you I was sick or hungover or tired, but I was high. I told you I’d been grounded when really I was out getting coke. I stole your vape once and traded it for a pill.”

He swallows. His hands are trembling.

“I told you I wasn’t using again and then did it that night. I lied to your face.”

James is quiet. Still.

Sirius breathes in, slow and jagged. “I’m so sorry.”

James finally looks up. “I know.”

Sirius frowns. “You… you knew?”

James gives a small, tired smile. “Not everything. Not the meth. Not how bad it was. But… yeah. I knew something wasn’t right.”

He pulls his knees to his chest. “You weren’t acting like you. You were mean sometimes. Or just… gone. You’d be sitting right there but it felt like you weren’t really in the room. I kept trying to pretend it was something else.”

“I hated myself for it,” Sirius whispers. “I hated that I could lie and make you believe me.”

“You were sick,” James says. Not cruelly. Not as an excuse. Just the truth. “You were trying to survive. And you’re still here.”

Sirius nods. Then after a moment: “You think I’ll graduate?”

James snorts. “You’re literally doing online catch-up school right now. And Remus has that spreadsheet tracking your credits like he’s applying to NASA. You’re definitely gonna graduate.”

Sirius gives a half-smile. “I missed like half of junior year.”

“Yeah, and still somehow passed U.S. History,” James says, nudging him. “I think the real question is, are you going to the senior trip?”

“God, no.”

“What? C’mon! Amusement parks, overpriced pizza, yelling on buses for five hours?”

Sirius laughs—really laughs—and shakes his head. “I’d rather be dead.”

James freezes, then looks at him, worried.

Sirius winces. “Not… I didn’t mean—”

“I know,” James says quickly. “Bad joke. But I get it.”

They lapse into an easier silence.

James starts picking at the hem of his shirt. “Do you remember that time in 9th grade when you rewired the vending machine to give us free Pop-Tarts?”

“Allegedly rewired it,” Sirius says smugly.

“Oh yeah, sorry. It malfunctioned.”

They grin.

Sirius flops onto his side, head on the pillow, eyes half-lidded. “Do you remember when we told Mr. Finke that Peter had shingles just to get him out of giving that presentation?”

“I do,” James says, laughing. “He didn’t even know what shingles were!”

They go on like that—talking about stupid freshman year drama, gym class disasters, terrible cafeteria food. For a little while, it feels like they’re just seventeen. Not broken. Not grieving. Not anything other than boys trying to stay close to who they used to be.

Eventually, James gets up. He pauses at the door.

“Hey, Pads?”

Sirius turns his head toward him.

“I’m proud of you.”

The words hit Sirius right in the ribs. He doesn’t know how to say thank you without crying, so he just nods.

The door closes quietly.

Sirius lies still in the dark.

He’s not okay. Not yet. Maybe not for a long time.

But right now, the hurt feels survivable.

And that’s something.

-; ━━━

The hallway smells the same—cheap disinfectant and perfume, the too-sweet kind sprayed in locker rooms and girls' bathrooms. Sirius stands just inside the front entrance of the school, clutching the strap of his backpack like it might keep him from falling apart.

It’s too loud.

He hasn’t been here since Febuary.

Students shove past him in every direction, calling to each other across the halls, locker doors slamming open and shut. Phones buzz. Laughter cuts through the chaos like a blade. It’s all normal. It’s all deafening.

Remus is at his side, like he promised, his hand brushing Sirius’s arm. Not holding, not pushing. Just there.

“You okay?” he murmurs.

Sirius nods. Then shakes his head. Then shrugs.

“I don’t know.”

Remus gives a tiny smile. “We can just go to the office. Get your schedule. Say hi to Ms. Collins. No pressure to go to class right away.”

Sirius swallows. He’s already sweating through the collar of his shirt.

“Okay,” he says, voice hoarse.

They start walking. Sirius keeps his eyes low. A few people stare. A few whisper. He hears his name once, maybe twice, but it’s hard to tell over the buzz.

He’s not sure what they know.

Probably enough.

He looks like shit. He knows that. He’s lost weight. His hoodie hangs off his shoulders like it doesn’t belong to him. His wrists are bony. His nails are short from picking. The laces of his sneakers are too tight. He did that on purpose.

Remus walks just a little ahead, leading him down the hall toward the admin office. They pass his old locker. He doesn’t look at it.

Inside the office, it’s quiet.

The receptionist—Ms. Collins—is wearing a cardigan with cartoon pencils on it. She looks up and blinks. Then smiles.

“Sirius. We’ve missed you.”

He doesn’t know what to say. He nods. The smile she gives him isn’t pitying. It’s warm. Like she’s actually glad to see him.

“I’ve got your schedule right here,” she says. “A few of your classes have changed, just to make sure you’re with teachers who know what’s going on. And you’ll check in with the counselor every morning before homeroom, just to make sure you’re doing okay.”

Sirius nods again.

“Do you want to sit in the counselor’s office for a bit?” she asks. “You can rest. Or read. Or whatever you need.”

He wants to say no.

He wants to say he can do this.

But he’s breathing like he just ran a mile, and his palms are shaking.

“Yeah,” he says. “Please.”

Remus follows him in.

They sit side by side on the worn couch. The office is filled with soft lighting and cheap motivational posters: It’s Okay to Not Be Okay, You Are More Than Your Worst Day, Keep Going. Sirius stares at one with a cat hanging from a tree branch and reads it six times.

“I feel like everyone’s staring,” he says.

“They probably are,” Remus answers honestly. “But not all of them are judging. Some people are just curious. And most of them will forget by next week.”

“I don’t want them to forget,” Sirius murmurs. “But I don’t want them to know either.”

“I know.”

They sit quietly.

Eventually, Remus pulls a granola bar from his bag. “Want one?”

Sirius shakes his head. Then takes it anyway.

The first bell rings.

And he doesn’t run.

-; ━━━

The classroom is mostly full when Sirius steps in.

James is already there, sitting at their usual desk in the back. He looks up when Sirius walks in and gives a small smile—no big gesture, no wave, just… recognition. An anchor.

Sirius walks toward him, aware of every eye in the room. He feels like a shadow of himself.

James nudges his chair out.

“Hey,” he says quietly.

“Hey.”

They sit. The teacher starts going over a Supreme Court case. Sirius doesn’t open his textbook. He just listens. Breathes. Tries not to fidget. He feels like everyone’s watching.

James leans over and writes something in the margin of his notebook:

You’re doing okay.

Sirius stares at the words.

Then underlines them.

-; ━━━

The sky is too blue.

Sirius stares up at it as he sits in the third row of folding chairs on the football field, knees jiggling, the polyester graduation gown already clinging to the backs of his thighs. It’s hot and humid, and everything smells like sunblock and overwatered grass.

The valedictorian is giving a speech about “turning the page” and “holding onto memories” and “finding light in the dark.” She’s crying a little. So is her mom, in the bleachers.

Sirius is just trying not to throw up.

He can feel his heart racing beneath the shiny fabric of his robe. His fingers are clenched hard around the rolled-up program in his lap. He hasn’t spoken in hours.

Remus is beside him, shoulders squared, sitting still like always. James is on his other side, fidgeting with the tassel of his cap, eyes flicking from the podium to the crowd.

Peter’s a few rows back. He waved when Sirius came in. Lily smiled at him like she always used to.

He still can’t believe he’s here.

The last few weeks have blurred into late-night essays and makeup exams, morning check-ins with his counselor, long hours on Remus’s couch with textbooks open and empty mugs of coffee balanced on the armrest. He’d passed everything. Barely, but enough.

And now he’s here. In a folding chair. On the field. About to get a diploma.

They call James’s name.

He stands, grins, fist-bumps Sirius as he passes, and walks to the stage. His curls are sticking out of the sides of his cap. His mom cheers from the crowd—That’s my boy!—and he laughs, ducking his head.

He’s glowing.

They call Remus next.

Remus stands, straightens his shoulders, and walks with quiet confidence up the stairs, shaking hands with the principal. He doesn’t wave to the crowd. He doesn’t need to. Sirius knows he’s glowing too.

Then:

“Sirius Black.”

It feels fake. Like a punchline. Like he dreamed someone would say it.

He stands slowly.

His legs feel like they belong to someone else.

He walks.

Each step is careful. Focused. His shoes crunch on the turf. The robe swishes around his knees. He walks up the stairs. Shakes the principal’s hand.

Someone in the audience claps louder than the others. James, probably. Maybe Remus.

The guidance counselor is there too, holding out the fake diploma cover. Her eyes meet his. She doesn’t say anything, but her mouth trembles.

Sirius takes it.

He steps off the stage.

His hands are shaking.

He sits back down.

Breathe, he tells himself. You did it. You’re here. You’re alive.

The ceremony ends with caps in the air and hugs and shouting and the sound of folding chairs scraping against turf. Someone’s playing “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” from a Bluetooth speaker, and kids are crying and laughing and hugging their friends.

Sirius just stands there, blinking, until Remus wraps an arm around him.

“You okay?” he asks gently.

Sirius swallows.

“I don’t know,” he whispers. “I think so.”

James pulls them both into a tight, lopsided hug.

“We did it,” he says, grinning. “You did it.”

Sirius lets himself lean into them.

Let’s himself be held.

Let’s himself feel it.

They take a photo—Remus holding up the phone, James leaning in too far, Sirius in the middle, a little off-balance, smiling like he forgot how not to. He doesn’t post it anywhere. He just keeps it.

For himself.

For proof.

Later, after the crowd thins, he stands at the edge of the field alone for a moment, staring at the bleachers. The sun is starting to set behind them.

He closes his eyes.

I’m still here.

It doesn’t feel like the end.

It feels like a beginning.

And that’s enough.

-; ━━━

117.

That’s how many days it had been.

He’d kept count. Every morning. Sometimes with tally marks scratched into the edge of the desk in Remus’s room. Sometimes on his phone’s notes app. Once, for a week, he’d written it on his arm in pen.

One hundred and seventeen.

Now it didn’t matter.

The number was broken.

It had snapped clean in half like a matchstick, and the sound of it cracking wouldn’t stop echoing in his head.

Sirius sat on the edge of the bathtub in the dark, his feet cold on the tile, the towel under them damp. The bathroom reeked of whatever leftover bleach Remus had cleaned with that morning. He was trembling.

It had been too fast.

Not the high. The moment before. The way it happened.

A whisper in the brain: You can’t breathe.

You’re going to claw your own throat out.

And then, everything just tilted sideways.

He’d known where to go. He hated that he still knew.

It had taken twenty minutes.

That was all.

He didn’t even smoke it, not this time. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to feel that particular kind of burn again. So he crushed it. Swallowed half of it raw like he used to with Adderall, like it would hit the back of his brain and silence everything.

It wasn’t Adderall.

He knew what it was.

It’s meth, Sirius.

It’s always meth.

He was crying before it hit him. That was the worst part. The high hadn’t even started yet, and he was already crying like a kid, hands curled up into his hoodie, the sleeves damp and fraying.

He didn’t even want to.

He just needed to.

That was the difference. Wanting was a luxury. Wanting was what people who weren’t him got to feel.

He couldn’t go back to Remus like this.

He couldn’t go back to anyone.

The lies felt dry in his mouth already. Like dust. Like cardboard.

I’m okay. I’m just tired. I didn’t sleep well.

I think I’m coming down with something.

It was nothing. It wasn’t even—

He gagged suddenly. Doubled over the sink.

The taste of chemical still coated his teeth.

He pressed his forehead to the edge of the counter, face pale, pupils blown wide.

He was supposed to be better.

He was supposed to be graduated, clean, thinking about the future.

College, maybe.
A job.
A summer road trip with James.
Sleeping in Remus’s bed without shaking through the night.

But now the number was gone.

He couldn’t even remember what day it was.

He sat on the tile floor until his legs went numb. Until the buzz in his chest finally started to catch.

And the panic gave way to stillness.

A terrible stillness. The kind that came after you ruined something.

He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his hoodie and stared at the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to no one.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He didn’t call anyone.

He didn’t even cry again.

He just lay down on the cold bathroom floor, facing the wall, and listened to the house creak around him like it was falling in too.

-; ━━━

The world felt underwater.

That was the only way to describe it.

Like the air was thick, and syrupy, and time moved slower than his own hands. Like sound had to push through molasses to reach his ears, and when it did, it was warped and slurred and distant.

He couldn’t remember what time it was.

Couldn’t remember what day it was, even.

He was on the floor again, in the corner of Remus’s bedroom this time, half-curled beneath the window. His hoodie was bunched up around his ribs. His hands were twitching slightly in his lap. There was a long, white-hot burn still crawling up the inside of his throat.

He blinked.

He might’ve been smiling.

Or crying.

He couldn’t tell.

The door opened behind him. Quiet. Hesitant. Familiar footsteps. He didn’t move.

Then: silence.

And then, slowly—

“Oh, Sirius.”

Remus’s voice.

He said it like someone was stepping on his ribs.

Sirius blinked again, too slowly. He didn’t look up.

“I thought—” Remus’s voice cracked. “I hoped—”

Another pause. The kind of silence that slams against your ears.

Sirius didn't say anything. He wasn’t even trying to lie anymore. His jaw was slack, eyes barely focused, body swaying slightly with every breath.

“Let’s go see Dr. Chiang.”

Remus’s voice was soft, but solid. It didn’t rise, didn’t shake again. Just four words, like stone.

Sirius made a sound. Almost a laugh. It came out broken and low.

“Why?” he slurred, words caught somewhere in his teeth. “It won’t change anything.”

Remus stepped into the room fully. His shadow fell across Sirius like a door closing.

“You’re not okay.”

“I know.”

Remus sat down across from him, knees bent, hands clasped between them.

They didn’t touch.

Sirius closed his eyes, swaying again.

He didn’t cry.

Remus didn’t ask what it was this time.

He already knew.

The meth was thick on his breath. The room reeked of it. It clung to the walls like mildew, like mold, like something you couldn't ever scrub clean.

“I’ve been doing it every day,” Sirius said, like it was an afterthought. “Ten days, I think. Or more.”

Remus’s face didn’t move.

Sirius looked at him, finally. His pupils were blown, skin ghostly pale, jaw bruised from where he’d been clenching it.

“I think it’s killing me.”

Remus didn’t nod. Didn’t shake his head.

He just looked back.

And then reached forward.

Gently took Sirius’s hand, and held it between both of his.

“It’s not going to win,” he said.

And Sirius—slowly, like his limbs were made of static—let himself lean forward. Let his forehead drop against Remus’s shoulder. Didn’t say anything else.

There wasn’t anything left to say.

They stayed like that until Sirius stopped shaking.

-; ━━━

It started before the sun came up.

Sirius woke with a tremor running through his entire body — not the kind you can shake off, but the kind that owns you. His skin felt too tight. His blood too loud. His stomach curled in on itself like it wanted to crawl out of his body.

He was freezing.

And sweating.

He sat up too fast and threw up into the bucket Remus had put beside the bed during his last detox. He hadn’t needed it then. He needed it now.

He gagged so hard it felt like something might come up from behind his ribs.

By the time Remus came in, Sirius was on the floor again, curled into himself in the same old hoodie, jaw locked from the nausea and clenching. His teeth chattered even though it was warm out. There was a tremble in his legs he couldn’t stop.

Remus didn’t say anything. He just dropped to his knees beside him and pressed a damp cloth to Sirius’s face. Sirius batted it away weakly, eyes wide, unfocused.

“It hurts,” he whispered.

“I know,” Remus said softly. “I know it does.”

But it was more than pain. It was something else. Something that dragged your brain out of your skull and left you behind. Something hungry, and awful, and electric, all at once.

“I can’t—” Sirius said. “I can’t—I don’t think I can—”

He couldn’t finish sentences.

He couldn’t sit up.

He vomited again.

By ten a.m., he was shaking so hard Remus had to hold his arms down to keep him from hitting his head against the bed frame.

By noon, he was crying.

Not sobbing. Not even really weeping. Just a slow stream of tears tracking across his cheeks, pooling in his ears as he lay flat on the floor, mouth open, gasping for air.

Remus made the call. Quietly. In the hallway. His voice breaking for the first time in days.

And Dr. Chiang came.

She arrived just after one. Hair in a bun, dressed simply, no judgment on her face. A medical bag slung over one shoulder. She didn’t knock loudly.

Remus let her in.

“I thought it might get this bad,” she said, already slipping her shoes off by the door.

“He’s not… he can’t…” Remus didn’t finish the sentence.

She just nodded.

She found Sirius on the floor of the guest bedroom — the one they’d tried to make feel separate from Remus’s. The one with the blackout curtains and no mirrors.

He didn’t register her at first.

His eyes were wild, but not seeing.

She sat next to him on the floor, cross-legged.

“Sirius,” she said gently.

He blinked.

“Hi,” she said. “It’s me again. Dr. Chiang.”

His mouth moved. Nothing came out.

“I’m not going to ask you questions,” she said softly. “I just need to take care of you right now, alright?”

He flinched when she touched his arm. His whole body recoiled.

“Okay,” she said, backing off. “Okay. That’s okay.”

Remus stood in the doorway, pale and still. He hadn’t spoken since she arrived.

Dr. Chiang opened her bag. She didn’t use anything harsh. Just fluids. Anti-nausea meds. Vitamin injections. Something for the tremors, if he could keep it down. Gentle hands. Soft tone. She moved slow. She didn’t touch him more than she had to.

Sirius closed his eyes again halfway through.

When she finished, she leaned back, legs folded beneath her.

“You’re going to feel worse before you feel better,” she said. “But you are going to feel better.”

He didn’t respond. His face was slack with exhaustion.

“But I need you to trust me this time,” she said. “If we’re going to get you through this, you have to stop disappearing on me.”

She glanced up at Remus.

“He shouldn’t be alone. Not even for a second. You understand?”

Remus nodded.

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” Dr. Chiang said. “You call me if anything changes. If he uses again. If he gets violent. If he starts talking about dying.”

Sirius flinched at that word.

“I’m not—” he rasped.

Dr. Chiang raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not gonna try,” he clarified, breathless. “But I do want to die.”

Silence. Stillness.

Dr. Chiang didn’t look surprised. Just tired.

“That’s okay,” she said. “I’ve heard that before. We’ll talk about it next time.”

She left a packet of instructions with Remus.

Before she left, she turned back once in the doorway.

“You saved him,” she said to Remus. “Again.”

Remus didn’t respond.

He sat with Sirius the whole night, watching the seconds crawl past. Watching his best friend try to fight a war in his own body. Holding a cold cloth to his forehead. Whispering, again and again:

“You’re not alone.”

Even when Sirius was too far gone to hear him.

Chapter Text

Sirius didn’t move for hours.

He stayed curled on the floor beside the bed, facing the wall, one arm twisted beneath him, the other limp and cold against the hardwood. The window was open, but it didn’t help. Sweat soaked through the hoodie he hadn’t taken off. His breath stayed shallow and fast, like he was bracing for something that never came.

Remus sat just behind him, propped up against the wall with one leg outstretched, one drawn in. He didn’t speak. He barely blinked. He just watched Sirius breathe, like if he turned away, Sirius might stop.

At some point, Remus texted Dr. Chiang again.

He didn’t think she’d come back that day.

But she did.

She knocked this time — softly. And when Remus opened the door, she gave him a small nod, like she’d already known she would need to return.

“He hasn’t moved,” Remus said.

“I figured,” she said, slipping off her shoes again. She carried the same bag. Her eyes were more tired this time.

When she entered the room, Sirius didn’t acknowledge her. His eyes were open, unfocused, pupils wide, face slack. He was still breathing fast, and his fingers were twitching every few seconds, like they were dreaming without him.

Dr. Chiang lowered herself onto the floor again. She didn’t speak at first. Just sat, watching him.

After a minute, she said, “Sirius, I’m back.”

No response.

“That’s okay,” she said. “You don’t need to talk. I’m not expecting anything from you right now.”

She opened her bag, carefully. Quiet, deliberate. She laid out the same meds she’d used earlier: anti-nausea, a beta blocker, fluids, electrolyte tabs. This time, she pulled out an emergency dose of a mild sedative.

“He’s starting to hit the wall,” she murmured to Remus. “The adrenaline spike is wearing off. His nervous system is starting to crash.”

Remus’s jaw was clenched.

“Is it going to get worse?”

Dr. Chiang didn’t answer at first. She looked back at Sirius.

“Likely,” she said softly. “But if he doesn’t get agitated, we might be able to stabilize him here. No hospital, if we can help it.”

Sirius made a faint sound — a gasp, maybe. It could’ve been pain. Or panic. His legs twitched violently once, and then his whole body tensed.

Dr. Chiang leaned forward.

“I’m going to give you something, Sirius,” she said, still using that soft, even voice. “Just to calm the worst of it. It’s going to help your heart stop racing.”

Still nothing from him.

So she worked gently, rolling up the sleeve of his hoodie, finding a vein, administering the injection with hands that didn’t shake.

He flinched at the needle, but barely.

Remus had turned his face away.

Ten minutes later, Sirius’s breath slowed slightly. His hands stopped twitching. His eyes didn’t close, but they stopped darting. His whole body looked less like it was vibrating out of itself.

Dr. Chiang took his pulse. Noted his temperature. Scribbled something in a notepad.

Remus hadn’t moved.

“He’s coming down,” she said, glancing at him. “But this isn’t the end of the withdrawal. It’s just the lull.”

Remus rubbed both hands over his face.

“He won’t drink water,” he said. “Won’t talk. Barely blinks.”

“He’s in the worst place right now,” Dr. Chiang said. “It’s not apathy, it’s not surrender. It’s dissociation. He’s inside himself, somewhere, trying not to break.”

Remus nodded, tightly.

“He needs food. Sleep. Electrolytes. But more than that, he needs time. This first week is the worst.”

She didn’t add: if he makes it through the week. She didn’t need to.

Sirius whimpered, and both of them looked up.

His eyes were still open. But this time, they were wet.

“Hurts,” he whispered.

Remus moved instantly, crawling closer.

“I know,” he said. “I know it does.”

Sirius finally moved then — only an inch, just enough to reach for Remus’s hand with his shaking fingers.

Dr. Chiang didn’t speak again.

She stayed another hour. She made sure Sirius’s vitals stayed steady. She gave Remus a longer, more detailed set of instructions this time — how to administer hydration, how to monitor sleep cycles, how to keep him safe without touching him too much.

“He’s going to beg you to let him use again,” she said. “He may cry. He may scream. He may threaten.”

Remus nodded. His face was pale and drawn.

“And if that happens,” she said, “you call me. No hesitation.”

Before she left, she paused in the doorway again.

“I’ll come back tomorrow. But he’s lucky to have you, Remus. I mean that.”

Remus didn’t answer. He just sat beside Sirius again, hand resting against his shoulder, whispering steady, meaningless things as Sirius drifted in and out of sleep:

“I’m here. You’re okay. Just stay.”

-; ━━━

The scream started like a gasp, sharp and raw — and then tore itself into a roar so loud it made Remus drop the glass he was holding.

It shattered in the sink.

“Sirius—”

“FUCK OFF!”

Sirius was already on his feet, or trying to be. He stumbled into the desk chair, shoved it across the room with a deafening clatter. His face was red, blotchy, soaked in sweat. His arms were trembling, hands flexing like claws.

“Remus—Remus,” he spat, voice cracking like gravel. “Let me—let me out. I swear to God, if you don’t—I will—I’ll fucking leave.”

“You’re not going anywhere.”

Remus’s voice was low, trying to be calm, but his hands were shaking.

Sirius picked up a mug off the dresser and whipped it toward the door. It smashed into the frame, ceramic shards skidding across the floor.

“YOU DON’T GET TO TELL ME—”

Remus was already stepping back, pulling out his phone.

“No—no, no—fuck, don’t—” Sirius lunged for him, half-tripping over the rug. “Don’t call her, don’t fucking call her, you don’t get to fucking—”

But Remus had already hit dial.

He turned his back on Sirius, chest heaving, thumb pressed tight to the speaker. “Dr. Chiang, he’s—he’s not okay. He’s violent. He’s threatening to leave, he’s—he’s breaking things.”

Sirius let out a noise like a wounded animal, spinning, grabbing the bedside lamp and smashing it onto the floor. “I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD I’LL WALK OUT, I’LL SCORE TONIGHT, I DON’T CARE—”

“Please come,” Remus said into the phone. “Please.”

Sirius turned on him again, hands curled, eyes wild.

“I fucking hate you,” he snarled. “You don’t even get it, you think you’re helping, but you’re—you're fucking trapping me—”

“I am helping you,” Remus said, his voice breaking. “This is what helping looks like.”

Sirius laughed — a sharp, cruel, broken thing.

“Helping? You think this is helping?” His whole body was shaking now. “I want to peel my skin off, Remus. I want to rip my own fucking head off. Just let me use. Just once. Please. Please, I’ll be okay, I swear, I’ll just—I’ll do it safely, I’ll—”

“There is no safe way,” Remus snapped. “There’s no version where you use meth and come out okay. There’s no version where I let you and sleep at night.”

Sirius screamed again, this one louder than the first. It ripped through his throat like he was trying to destroy something inside himself.

And then — silence.

He collapsed backward into the corner, knocking over a stack of books. He was shaking so badly his knees bounced. His fists slammed against his own forehead.

“Please,” he whispered, over and over. “Please, please, please—”

Remus sank down by the wall, breathing like he’d run miles. He watched Sirius fall apart again.

Dr. Chiang was already on her way.

-; ━━━

Sirius wasn’t screaming anymore.

He’d gone quiet in a way that was worse than the rage. His whole body was slack and trembling, curled in the corner by the closet with one knee pulled to his chest. His hair stuck to his forehead, soaked through. His lips were pale, skin drawn so tight around his eyes that Remus swore he could see the shape of the bone beneath.

Remus hadn’t moved in minutes.

Dr. Chiang was on her way. But it felt like time had stopped.

Then — something shifted.

Sirius raised his head, slow and sudden like a puppet on strings. His eyes were glassy and empty.

Remus sat forward. “Sirius?”

No response. Not even a blink.

And then Sirius moved — fast, desperate, with that kind of eerie determination that looks like calm from a distance. He stood and staggered across the room, yanked open the desk drawer and reached inside.

Remus was on his feet instantly. “Hey—hey, what are you doing?”

But Sirius already had what he was looking for.

The pair of scissors — dull, plastic-handled — that had been shoved under math notebooks and wrinkled essays.

He looked at them. Just stared for one second.

And then without hesitation, he pressed them hard against his forearm.

“NO!” Remus lunged, grabbing his wrist. The scissors clattered to the floor. Sirius shoved at him, struggled like an animal in a trap, wild with strength.

“I can’t do this—Remus, I can’t—I can’t—I CAN’T—”

Remus wrapped his arms around him from behind, holding him tight, holding him still. Sirius thrashed, but Remus held tighter.

“Stop—Sirius, STOP—just hold on—Dr. Chiang’s coming—just HOLD ON—”

Sirius sobbed, loud and wet and ugly, fists pounding against Remus’s arms.

“I need it, I need it, I need it, I need it—”

“I know, I know—just breathe—just breathe—”

“I want to die,” Sirius gasped, his voice cracking apart. “If I can’t have it—I don’t—I don’t want to be alive—Remus—please—I don’t want to do this anymore—”

Remus’s grip faltered—but only for a second.

He turned Sirius in his arms and pulled him to the ground with him, holding him so tightly their ribs hurt against each other. Sirius was sobbing, screaming, kicking his legs against the floor.

“You are not doing this alone,” Remus whispered. “You are not dying, Sirius. You don’t have to do this by yourself. I’m right here.”

It felt like forever.

And then the front door opened.

“Remus?”

Dr. Chiang’s voice echoed through the hall.

“We’re upstairs,” Remus called hoarsely, still clutching Sirius to his chest, his own cheeks wet with tears.

Sirius was shaking. Not moving. His breath came in tiny, shallow gasps.

Dr. Chiang appeared in the doorway within seconds, and for the first time, her calm cracked. She dropped her bag and was beside them in a blink.

“What happened?” she said, already pulling out gloves, already reaching for her light and vitals kit.

“He—he tried—he had scissors,” Remus managed. “He said he wanted to die. He said he couldn’t do this.”

Dr. Chiang nodded, fast, grim. She moved in beside Sirius, whispering to him, checking his arms, making sure nothing had broken the skin.

He didn’t fight her. He didn’t speak.

He just lay there, curled against Remus like a shattered thing, and stared at the wall like the world had ended inside his head.

-; ━━━

Dr. Chiang had been sitting cross-legged on the floor for fifteen minutes, one arm firmly wrapped around Sirius’s torso, the other gently holding his wrist where he kept trying to curl his fingers toward himself. Not violently. Not with fury. Just with the stubborn, numbing ache of someone who didn’t want to feel anything at all.

She was holding him like you’d hold a child mid-nightmare. A careful, steady pressure that wasn’t suffocating, but immovable.

“Sirius,” she said gently, her voice low. “You're not in trouble. You’re in danger. That’s different.”

He didn’t answer. His face was pressed to the crook of her shoulder now. The room smelled like sweat and soap and tears.

Remus sat against the wall, his arms on his knees. He’d stopped crying. He hadn’t stopped shaking.

“He’s in mixed episode cycling,” Dr. Chiang said, still holding Sirius close. She spoke softly, for Remus, not for him. “Severe. With rapid dysphoria. You heard it yourself — the suicidality, the agitation, the rage, the collapse. It’s textbook.”

Remus rubbed his face. “So what now?”

Dr. Chiang nodded toward her bag. “He needs stabilizers. Now. But I can’t force them.”

At that, Sirius moved — only a flinch, a jerk of his head. Dr. Chiang didn’t let him go.

“Sirius?” she said, her voice gentle but firm. “I'm not forcing anything. I’m asking.”

No answer.

She looked to Remus. “Will you bring me the zippered pouch in the inner compartment?”

Remus nodded and stood, numb. He knelt beside her and opened the bag slowly, pulling out a thick, navy cloth pouch. Inside, sealed blister packs, labeled and dated. Antipsychotics. Mood stabilizers. One sedative.

Dr. Chiang reached in and picked out two small tablets. One white. One chalky yellow.

“Olanzapine,” she said. “And lithium. First-dose starter. If he takes them now, the edge will dull in a few hours. He won’t feel cured. But he’ll feel less like dying.”

Sirius still hadn’t moved.

Dr. Chiang gently pulled back. Not far — just enough to meet his eyes.

“Sirius,” she said softly. “Can you look at me?”

He didn’t. But he blinked.

“I want to help you,” she said. “But you need to let me.”

Remus felt something crack in his chest.

Still no answer. But Sirius’s hand twitched against hers.

“Just the first dose,” she said. “We’ll reassess in the morning. I’ll stay until you’re asleep. You won’t be alone.”

A tiny noise escaped Sirius’s throat. A broken hum. Then the smallest nod.

Remus exhaled for the first time in what felt like hours.

Dr. Chiang moved slowly, carefully. She handed the pills to Remus, and together, they got Sirius to sit up. His body sagged like all the bones were barely holding. His hands shook as Remus guided the water glass to his lips.

He took the pills. One. Then the other.

And then Sirius curled into Dr. Chiang’s side again — no rage, no resistance — and she held him as he wept without sound.

-; ━━━

The room was dark except for the orange light of the hallway spilling through the cracked door.

Sirius lay on his side now, curled tightly under the blanket, his damp curls plastered to his forehead. A bowl still sat near the bed in case he got sick again, and a cold rag rested on the table beside it. The sheets were a mess. His skin was gray. But he was breathing.

Dr. Chiang eased the door nearly shut behind her and turned into the hallway, where Remus was sitting on the carpet with his back against the wall, knees to his chest, head in his hands.

She crouched beside him. “He’s asleep.”

Remus nodded, his throat tight.

Dr. Chiang didn’t try to comfort him. She just sat next to him on the floor like they were two people waiting for something else to go wrong.

“Will he stay asleep?” Remus asked after a while, voice raw.

“He might. The olanzapine will knock him out for a few hours, at least. But it’ll be restless. Fragmented.” She paused. “I’ll stay here. In the chair outside the door. He won’t be alone.”

Remus looked down at his hands. “I didn’t know what to do. He was—he tried to kill himself right in front of me, and I couldn’t stop him from wanting to. I couldn’t—”

“You did everything right.”

“No, I—” His voice cracked. “I froze. I let him scream at me. I let him try. I should’ve stopped it sooner. I should’ve known.”

“You did stop it,” she said, and this time her voice was firm. “You called me. You stayed. You held him. You never once left. Remus, what he’s going through isn’t just addiction. It’s illness. It’s trauma. You’re not a doctor. You’re a teenage boy in love with someone who’s drowning.”

Remus pressed his forehead to his knees. He didn’t correct her. He didn’t need to.

“It’s going to be hell,” Dr. Chiang continued softly. “We need a plan. Long-term stabilization. Real therapy. Meth destroys dopamine receptors. The withdrawals will go on for weeks. The manic episodes might get worse before they get better. The suicidal thoughts won’t vanish overnight.”

“I know,” Remus said quietly.

“I want to start him on a consistent regimen tomorrow. Small doses. Lithium, possibly quetiapine later, depending on how he tolerates the olanzapine. We’ll monitor every symptom. I’ll come every day. If anything changes, I want to be called.”

Remus nodded. “I’ll do anything.”

Dr. Chiang rested her hand briefly on his shoulder. “You already are.”

There was a long pause.

Finally, Remus lifted his head. “Do you think he’s going to die?”

Dr. Chiang was quiet. Her face was calm, but not unreadable.

“I think,” she said carefully, “he wants to live. But he doesn’t know how to yet. And that means every single day we keep him breathing is a day closer to him learning.”

Remus nodded again.

“Rest if you can,” she added. “You don’t have to sit vigil tonight. You’re allowed to sleep.”

“I don’t want to.”

“That’s allowed too.”

She stood and stepped lightly back toward the bedroom door. She pulled the chair from the hallway closer, sat down, and opened a small folder from her bag. She started taking notes.

The house was silent, except for the faint tick of the kitchen clock and Sirius’s shallow, medicated breathing through the door.

Remus sat there for hours, not moving.

Just breathing, like Sirius was.

One breath at a time.

-; ━━━

The light in the room was early and gray when Sirius woke.

His mouth was bone dry. His arms ached like he'd spent the night clenching every muscle, and his throat burned from screaming — though he couldn’t quite remember why.

His body felt hollow. Not empty, exactly. More like scraped out.

The sheets were soaked in sweat. A cold rag had fallen beside his pillow, and a bowl — maybe for vomiting — sat nearby. The air smelled like damp skin and old nightmares. There was a folded blanket at his feet. Someone had tried to make him comfortable. Someone had stayed.

Sirius shifted and the pain in his back flared, dull and dense, like he’d been sleeping in concrete.

He blinked toward the door.

It was cracked open. A narrow line of hallway light crept across the floor.

A moment later, a gentle knock.

Dr. Chiang stepped inside, holding a ceramic mug in one hand and a small notebook in the other.

“Good morning,” she said softly.

Sirius closed his eyes. “Is it?”

“It’s almost eleven.”

“Christ.” His voice was shredded. “Did I…?”

“You’ve been asleep for most of the day,” she said. “That’s okay. Your body needed it.”

Sirius sat up slowly. The effort left him dizzy.

“Where’s Remus?”

“He’s downstairs. He hasn’t left the house since he found you.”

That made Sirius freeze. “What did I do?”

She was quiet for a moment.

Then she stepped forward and sat in the chair next to the bed, her movements calm and slow, like she didn’t want to startle him.

“You used meth again. You were clean 117 days.”

He looked down at his shaking hands. “Right.”

“You’d been high for almost a week straight when he found you.”

He blinked. “I don’t… I don’t remember.”

“You were in a mixed state,” she said gently. “It’s not uncommon. Especially with someone who has bipolar disorder. You were manic, but also suicidal. It’s one of the most dangerous states a person can be in.”

Sirius flinched.

“You were out of your mind, Sirius,” she said, her voice low but steady. “That’s not your fault.”

“I tried—” He stopped. He didn’t want to say it. “Did I hurt anyone?”

“No. But you scared the person you love most in the world.”

He looked away.

Dr. Chiang pulled a folded piece of paper from her notebook and handed it to him.

“You asked me to write this. So you’d believe it later.”

His fingers trembled as he opened it.

<b July 2</b
 You used meth.
 You told me you were suicidal.
 You screamed. You begged.
 You said you hated yourself.
 You said you didn’t want to die, but didn’t want to live either.
 You said: “Please help me. Don’t let me die.”
 Remus stayed. He held you down when you tried to hurt yourself.
 You took olanzapine and lithium.
 You fell asleep.
 You are still here.

Sirius stared at the words until they blurred.

Dr. Chiang sat still beside him, waiting.

“I don’t feel real,” Sirius said finally. “I feel like I’ve been half-dead for days. Weeks.”

“You’re detoxing,” she said gently. “That’s normal.”

“I feel like my skin doesn’t fit right.”

She nodded. “Also normal.”

He swallowed. “And Remus?”

“Would you like to see him?”

Sirius hesitated.

Then, slowly, he nodded.

Dr. Chiang stood and walked to the door. She didn’t rush.

A moment later, it creaked open again — and there he was.

Remus.

He was holding one of Sirius’s old hoodies. It was clean, folded, and worn soft around the sleeves.

His face was pale, his eyes rimmed red, but he smiled when he saw Sirius was awake. Not a big smile — more like a slow exhale.

“Hey,” Remus said.

Sirius looked down at his hands again. “I fucked up.”

“I know,” Remus said. “But you’re here.”

Silence.

“I don’t remember most of it.”

“That’s probably for the best.”

Sirius nodded.

Remus came closer, stepped around the bed, and gently placed the hoodie in Sirius’s lap. “It’s summer now. You graduated. You didn’t go to prom. You missed the parties. You’ve been… sick. And I’ve been scared shitless. But you’re still here.”

Sirius’s voice was small. “Do you hate me?”

“No,” Remus said immediately, without hesitation. “I just want you to live.”

They sat like that for a long time.

No school. No plans. No futures.

Just the two of them in the ruined quiet of July.

Still breathing.

-; ━━━

The first time they went outside, it was just to the mailbox.

Sirius stood on the porch barefoot, the concrete hot under his toes, blinking at the sun like he hadn’t seen it in years. The light made everything look unreal — too golden, too crisp. He shaded his eyes with a trembling hand.

Remus waited beside him, still as anything, like if he moved too quickly Sirius might disappear.

Sirius looked at the sidewalk. “It’s so fucking bright.”

“That’s summer for you.”

“It smells like… trees. Like dirt and heat.”

“That’s also summer.”

Sirius nodded.

Then he stepped forward. One step. Then another.

By the time they reached the curb, his hands were shaking and his chest felt too tight in his ribs. He clutched the mailbox like it was going to float away.

But he didn’t cry. He didn’t scream. He didn’t run back inside.

They stood there until a breeze swept down the street and the sweat cooled on their foreheads.

Remus looked at him and asked, “Want to go a little farther tomorrow?”

Sirius hesitated. “Yeah. I think so.”

-; ━━━

The second time, they went around the block. It took nearly forty minutes.

Sirius kept pausing, not to rest — not exactly — but to check. Check the sky. Check his hands. Check Remus’s expression. Everything still felt wrong in a way that was hard to name.

He kept expecting someone to yell at him. Kept expecting to look down and find his hands bloody or his breath missing.

But nothing happened. Just summer, just sidewalks. Just the chirp of cicadas and the rustle of wind through too-green trees.

By the third walk, Sirius wore shoes. By the fifth, they made it to the park. It was only two blocks away, but it felt like crossing a country.

Remus didn’t rush him. He didn’t talk unless Sirius wanted to. Sometimes they walked in silence. Sometimes Sirius muttered to himself — thoughts he didn’t want to keep, fragments that had no place to land.

“I keep thinking I should be dead,” he said once, under his breath.

Remus didn’t flinch. “But you’re not.”

“Why not?”

“You fought it.”

Sirius didn’t answer. He looked away instead.

-; ━━━

They kept a whiteboard in the kitchen now. A calendar grid Remus had drawn with careful straight lines and little boxes. Every morning, after Sirius took his meds, Remus handed him the marker.

He got to cross off the day.

After a week, there was a full row of Xs.

After two weeks, Sirius started leaving little notes next to them — some sarcastic, some sad.

 8 days – still fucking alive
 12 days – cravings bad today
 15 days – I made toast. like, real toast.
 21 days – Remus let me have a coffee. I shook for 3 hours. 10/10.
 27 days – thought about meth all night. didn’t use. fuck yeah.

On Day 30, Sirius stood at the board and stared at it for a long time. The whole month, clean. A full moon and three therapy sessions and two nightmares he remembered. He still hadn’t been able to sleep without meds. Still hadn’t laughed without flinching. Still forgot things. Still felt hollow.

But he was alive.

He capped the marker.

Remus walked into the kitchen, holding a slice of cake from the grocery store. One of those terrible sheet cake slices with bright blue icing and cursive letters: Happy Birthday!

“I scraped off the name,” Remus said. “Figured thirty days clean deserved frosting.”

Sirius raised an eyebrow. “We’re celebrating with someone else’s birthday?”

“Well. Their loss.”

Sirius smiled. Just barely. It looked a little like pain. But it was real.

They sat on the back step. Ate cake with plastic forks. Sirius’s hands shook and his throat burned when he swallowed.

“I wanted to use today,” Sirius admitted.

“I know.”

“I didn’t.”

“I know that too.”

The cicadas were screaming in the trees.

“Can you believe I graduated?” Sirius said suddenly.

Remus smiled. “I was there, remember?”

“I don’t remember much. Just heat. And your shirt. You were wearing that dumb lavender one.”

“You said I looked like a gay wizard.”

Sirius snorted. “You did.”

A pause.

“I’m scared it’ll all start again,” he whispered.

“I’m scared too.”

They finished the cake in silence.

Afterward, Remus handed Sirius the pen and let him mark the 30th day with a little star.

Chapter Text

The packing started early.

Remus didn’t want to do it all at once. He didn’t want the goodbye to hit like a brick wall. So instead, he folded things one drawer at a time. Made piles on his desk. Wrote lists in the notebook Sirius had torn pages out of all spring.

Sirius watched, mostly from the bed. Sometimes from the doorway. Sometimes from the floor.

“You’ll only be two hours away,” he’d said, the first time Remus brought it up.

“An hour and forty-two minutes, technically.”

Sirius had smiled, but it didn’t reach anything. “Not that you’ve Googled it a hundred times or anything.”

Remus smiled back. “Not at all.”

But neither of them were really joking.

-; ━━━

The problem wasn’t that Sirius was alone. Not exactly.

He had Dr. Chiang. He had the outpatient program three times a week. He had his calendar and his meds and his whiteboard. He had Peter, who texted sometimes, awkwardly but kindly.

He had James.

That was the part that made it hard to breathe.

Because James had been coming back for a while now. Quietly, in small moments. Sitting at the far edge of the porch. Dropping off snacks with Remus and leaving without saying much. Standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets and that look on his face — like he wanted to say everything and couldn’t say a single word.

Sirius didn’t hate him.

He didn’t think he ever really had.

But shame was worse than hatred.

And Sirius felt shame like a second skin.

-; ━━━

That morning, Remus sat beside Sirius on the porch steps, legs stretched long into the humid sunlight.

“I move in next week,” he said, gently. “And I’ll be back. A lot. Every weekend at first. I mean it.”

Sirius nodded.

“I just…” Remus trailed off. Picked at a splinter in the wood. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m abandoning you.”

“You’re not,” Sirius said quickly. “You’ve done more than anyone should ever have to do. You deserve college. You deserve—” He stopped himself. Looked down at his hands. “You don’t have to babysit me forever.”

“I don’t see it like that.”

“I do.”

Silence again. A car drove by, music thudding through its windows.

Remus glanced over. “I think you should talk to James.”

Sirius flinched.

“I know.”

“You’re not—he doesn’t hate you. He never did.”

“I hurt him,” Sirius said. “I lied to him. I screamed at him. He found me—he found me, and I…” He shut his mouth. Took a breath. “I don’t even remember half of it. Just that he cried.”

“You’ve both changed. You’re not the same person you were in March.”

“I don’t know who I am now either.”

Remus didn’t answer.

Then: “I think that’s okay.”

-; ━━━

James showed up that afternoon.

He didn’t come inside.

He stood by the gate in the backyard, hands deep in the pockets of his old hoodie. His curls were longer now, shaggy and wild from too much sun and too little attention. He looked tired.

Sirius stood frozen in the doorway.

“I’ll stay in the kitchen,” Remus said. “But I’ll be right here.”

Sirius nodded.

He walked out slowly. Across the grass. Every step felt like dragging something heavy.

James looked up when he approached.

For a long moment, they just stared at each other.

Then Sirius said, quietly, “Hey.”

James let out a soft breath, almost a laugh. “Hey.”

Another pause.

“I’m sorry,” Sirius said. The words were jagged. Like gravel in his mouth. “I know I’ve said it before but—”

“I know,” James said. “I know you are.”

“I miss you.”

James’s jaw tightened. He looked away. “Yeah. I missed you too.”

The wind picked up, rustling the trees. Somewhere far off, a dog barked.

James shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “You look better.”

“I feel… not terrible.”

“That’s a start.”

Sirius nodded. “I thought you wouldn’t want to see me again.”

James hesitated. “I didn’t. Not for a while. But that wasn’t because I stopped caring. It was because I cared so much it scared the shit out of me.”

Sirius swallowed hard. “I’m scared too.”

James looked up again. “Yeah?”

“Every fucking day.”

They stood in silence for a long time. Neither moved.

Then James said, “Remus told me it’s almost sixty days.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Shit, Pads.”

Sirius’s throat closed.

“Can I hug you?” James asked softly.

Sirius nodded, and before he knew it, James’s arms were around him, and he was clutching the back of James’s hoodie like a lifeline, and his chest hurt in a way that was both awful and healing.

When he stepped back, he was blinking fast.

James was, too.

“We can hang out again. Whenever you want,” James said.

“Okay.”

“I mean it. Movies. Homework. Real boring shit. I’ve missed boring shit with you.”

Sirius laughed, and this time it was real.

-; ━━━

Here is the next part of your story — quiet, heavy, and slow. It's still August. It's Remus’s first night away, and Sirius is 60 days clean.

-; ━━━

Remus’s car was too full. Sirius had laughed when they packed it, stacking books and posters and milk crates full of perfectly folded sweaters into the backseat. It felt like a joke: how was it possible for someone he loved to fit their whole life into a Honda Civic and still be leaving him behind?

They didn’t talk much during the drive to campus. Just listened to music and let the silence stretch between them. Sirius hadn’t said what was pressing against his ribs the whole ride — I don’t want you to go, I don’t want to do this alone again, I’m not ready.

Remus hadn’t said what was in his eyes, either — You are ready. And I’ll still be here. I will never stop being here.

He stayed long enough to unpack two boxes and pin a photo of the two of them to the wall above his desk. Then he gave Sirius one last hug — a long one, grounding, arms wrapped tight.

“I’ll call tonight,” Remus whispered. “I’ll call every night.”

Sirius just nodded, pressing his forehead to Remus’s collarbone.

And then he let go.

And then Remus was gone.

-; ━━━

The house was too quiet.

Sirius made himself pasta. Ate three bites and threw the rest away. He tried to watch something stupid on his laptop but couldn’t stop checking the time. He cleaned the bathroom. He took a shower. He opened his closet three times and stood there like he didn’t know what he was looking for.

At 9:42, he sat on his bed with his legs curled tight against his chest and thought:

> “I could just—just once. Just a little. It would take the edge off. I wouldn’t go full spiral, I wouldn’t. Not like before.”

But he knew that voice. He knew it wasn’t real.

And still.

Still.

He reached for the drawer anyway.

But his fingers stopped before the handle.

And shaking, too nauseous to cry, he pulled out his phone instead.

-; ━━━

Call log:
Outgoing — 9:47 PM — James Potter

“Hello?”

Sirius’s voice broke. “James?”

A pause. “Yeah. I’m here. What’s wrong?”

“I—fuck—I can’t—I want to—I need you.”

“Where are you?”

“My house.”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

-; ━━━

James showed up in seven.

Sirius opened the door before he could knock. He looked like hell. His eyes were glassy and his shirt was inside out and his hair hadn’t been brushed since that morning. He didn’t even say anything — just stepped back to let James in and collapsed onto the couch.

James sat beside him. Not too close. Just enough.

Neither spoke for a minute.

Then, quiet: “Remus left today.”

“I know.”

“And it’s so fucking quiet in here, James.”

James looked at him. “Are you thinking about using?”

Sirius nodded. “Yeah.”

James didn’t flinch. “What kind?”

“I don’t know. I don’t—I don’t have anything. But my brain keeps going, and I want it to shut the fuck up, and I know what would do that, and—”

“And so you called me.”

Sirius’s voice cracked. “I didn’t want to. I mean—I didn’t want to use. But I did.”

James nodded slowly. “I’m glad you called.”

“I hate this.”

“I know.”

James reached into his pocket and pulled out a candy bar.

“Emergency chocolate,” he said, like it was a spell.

Sirius laughed weakly. “That’s stupid.”

“Yeah, well, so are you.”

Sirius wiped his face. “Don’t be nice to me.”

“I’m not,” James said. “I’m being annoying. It’s different.”

They sat there a while longer. James gave him half the chocolate bar. Sirius didn’t want it, but he ate it anyway. It tasted like trying. Like staying.

“I miss Remus already,” Sirius said.

“I know.”

“I feel like my skin’s too small.”

James didn’t say anything. Just put a hand on his shoulder. Warm. Grounding. A lighthouse in the static.

“Can you stay?” Sirius asked, almost too soft to hear.

“As long as you need.”

-; ━━━

-; ━━━

To: Remus 🐺
Sent: 8:02 AM

i didn't use.
i wanted to.
so fucking bad.
but i didn't.
just wanted you to know.

-; ━━━

From: Remus 🐺
Received: 8:05 AM

thank you for telling me
thank you for not using
i'm so proud of you, sirius
are you okay now?
i can call on my break
i love you

Of course — here's the continuation of that early morning moment, starting with Sirius’s reply, the phone call, and then a full, raw, quiet text conversation between Sirius and Remus later that afternoon. The pacing remains slow and intimate.

-; ━━━

To: Remus 🐺
Sent: 8:07 AM
i’m okay now i think
james stayed
he brought chocolate
i hate that i needed him but
i did
i needed someone

-; ━━━

From: Remus 🐺
Received: 8:09 AM
you don’t have to hate needing people
you’re allowed to need someone
i’m really glad he was there
i’m calling in a minute okay?

-; ━━━

\[Incoming call – Remus 🐺]
8:11 AM
Call Duration: 00:12:46

The call is quiet. Sirius barely talks at first. Just breathes. Listens to Remus’s voice say his name over and over, gently, like a lullaby.

“I’m proud of you,” Remus says softly, after Sirius tells him everything. “You could’ve spiraled. But you didn’t. That matters, Sirius.”

Sirius doesn't believe it yet. But he listens. That’s all he can do.

-; ━━━

Sirius 🐾:
i miss you so bad it’s making my teeth ache
i swear the air’s different without you in it

Remus 🐺:
i miss you too
everything’s too quiet here even with people around
i keep looking at the passenger seat and expecting you to be there

Sirius 🐾:
i think if james hadn’t come over i might’ve used
i was already halfway to the drawer
i feel like that makes me weak

Remus 🐺:
it doesn’t
it makes you someone who’s fighting
and winning
even when it feels like losing

Sirius 🐾:
i wish i felt proud
you say it and it sounds like a good thing
but all i feel is shame

Remus 🐺:
then i’ll hold the pride for both of us until you can feel it too
sirius
you are doing something so fucking hard
and you’re still here
still waking up
still trying

Sirius 🐾:
you’re gonna make me cry

Remus 🐺:
good
i miss your stupid cry face
with your nose all red and your eyes puffy and dramatic

Sirius 🐾:
rude
i cry like a victorian ghost and you know it

Remus 🐺:
i do know it
and i love you

Sirius 🐾:
i love you too
so much it makes me want to run laps or scream or something

Remus 🐺:
please don’t run laps
you have the stamina of a victorian ghost too

Sirius 🐾:
:(((((