(no subject)

[grimsirius.livejournal.com]

Time: July 13, 2000
Place: Bar
Status: Public (Complete)
Summary: Sirius comes out of hiding.



When the heat, the tangle of heavy blankets, and the sweat running down his legs became too much, Sirius woke up. He could see the darkness behind the skin of his eyelids, and he clenched his eyes shut until he managed to stop his hands shaking. When he opened them, finally, it wasn’t as bad as it might have been. There were strange shadows on the floor, and after a few seconds of blinking the rough outline of his hand was clear before his eyes. It wasn’t complete darkness, just the darkness of being alone in his room after night had fallen and Remus had left for work.

He hadn’t had to wake like this for some time. Lately, he’d been sleeping during the day when he slept at all, and prowling the grounds or the little town around the manor at nights. He would have preferred to sleep away the times between sunsets and sunrises, but Remus worked nights, and the fear and nausea brought on by the darkness and shadows was nothing compared to not having Remus for the nightmares or those first, terrifying seconds after waking but before his memory returned. Besides, the darkness was easier to ignore in the dog’s world of smells and sounds and fuzzy sights.

The dreams were bad tonight. Sirius waved a hand to turn on the lamp at his bedside and began to rummage through the dresser drawers for the half-empty bottle of firewhiskey he knew was around somewhere, but changed his mind. He wanted to get drunk, but not in the creaky, empty bedroom. He wanted smells and noise and light and laughter and Remus, damn it. Remus had left him for work again, but Sirius was sure if he could find him, he could get Remus to come back upstairs with him. Only Remus was working, and he might get angry if Sirius went and bothered him, and Sirius didn’t know what he’d do if Remus hated him.

There was a bar downstairs, if Sirius remembered it correctly. He’d seen it sometimes on his way out of the manor. It had looked pricey, and truth be told he didn’t want to know anyone in the manor—people who wanted to get to know him better tended to ask a lot of questions he never had the answers to. But maybe if he went there, Remus would see him, and would leave work early and come upstairs and be with him. He allowed himself a small smile at the thought—his friend was so caring sometimes and really might do that.

He pulled on Remus’ worn old jeans and a black shirt that Remus bought him to go out in (he smiled again as he shrugged it over his bony shoulders). There were a few muggle coins in his pocket, and Sirius didn’t think they were worth much but he didn’t know where Remus kept the rest of the money. He closed and locked the door behind him, and crept down the halls and stairways until he reached the bar, careful to stay in the shadows so no one would try to talk to him.

When he reached the bar, he blinked a few times in the brighter light, and sat on one of the barstools. He didn’t look the bartender in the eye, but took the coins out of his pocket and put them on the table. There were six golden ones, and four silver ones in different sizes and shapes.

“Give me the strongest drink I can get for this,” he said, glancing towards the doorway in case Remus walked by.

Comments

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," said Crowley from a few barstools away. With John keeping to himself lately and Aziraphale working all hours in the library, the demon was feeling a bit lonely and this guy looked interesting enough for a while. "Here."

He waved a hand and an entire bottle of single malt scotch and a glass appeared in front of Sirius.

[grimsirius.livejournal.com]

Sirius heard the other man speak, but didn't realize that he was speaking to him until the bottle and glass materialized on the counter. He raised his eyebrows, not so much out of surprise that someone could conjure alcohol with the wave of a hand but that he would do so for Sirius.

He picked up the bottle and sniffed the rim, watching the stranger out of the corner of his eye. The act would have looked more at home on a feral animal than on a man, but Sirius had stopped caring about appearances a long time ago. As far as he was concerned, anyone who thought he was strange could bugger off and there'd be one less person to deal with.

It smelled okay, though. Better than okay, actually, and he couldn't afford to pass. Besides, between the dark sunglasses in a bar and the black designer clothes, the man looked exactly like the sort of shady character that shouldn't be trusted and that more than anything made Sirius want to trust him. It was always the ones that seemed harmless that get you in the end.

(He wasn't bad looking, either, although Sirius wasn't sure he was ready to explore that particular avenue quite yet.)

He poured himself half a glass, tossed it back rather alarmingly, and gave a gruff nod in the other man's direction.

"Thanks."

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Crowley shrugged, faintly impressed that Sirius thought to check the contents before drinking from the bottle. It wasn't tampered with, but the action was telling. This man had feared for his life before. He didn't trust people. Interesting. It reminded the demon faintly of John. But he also hadn't looked terribly startled when the bottle appeared. So a wizard, maybe? It was the sort of analysis Crowley did on everyone he met for the first time and was quite good at it by now.

"Sure thing," he said. "Name's Crowley. Anthony Crowley. Just get in?"

[grimsirius.livejournal.com]

Sirius poured himself another glass and listened to Crowley speak without looking up from the counter. He didn't like to talk to people he didn't know. Talking in general was an effort-- there was a time when he was good at it, but since Azkaban he couldn't remember how to make small talk work. Most of the time, he only had conversations with people who understood him well enough to ignore the silences (like Remus), or Harry and his friends, who fascinated him so much that there was no end to what he could say.

Still, he felt somewhat obligated to try to talk to the man who'd got him a drink. He wasn't sure if it was a good idea to introduce himself-- even five years after his pardon, the name Sirius Black still held a lot of meaning in the wizarding world-- but the warmth of the liquor was beginning to spread through his body, and he didn't feel much like making something up.

"Sirius Black," he said, facing Crowley at last as though the name was a threat or challenge. But the expression softened after a moment.

"Nah, been here a few months." He waved a hand vaguely. "Haven't been around much lately, though." He sighed, and picked up the glass again.

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Well, that name certainly sounded familiar, though by now Crowley felt he shouldn't be surprised by odd coincidences. They seemed to follow Adam around as loyally as Dog did. He raised an eyebrow.

"I've been here almost a year myself. You don't happen to be related to a Draco Malfoy by chance, do you?" he asked casually.

[grimsirius.livejournal.com]

Sirius raised an eyebrow (or rather, he tried-- he'd never been as good at it as Remus was. One side of his forehead wrinkled slightly, and Sirius just assumed that the eyebrow had raised).

"'S a cousin of mine," said Sirius, giving Crowley another quick glance over. Since Crowley knew that the Malfoys were related to the Blacks, that meant he was in touch with the wizarding world, but in his experience family ties were generally the least of any wizard's worries when he found out he was speaking to Sirius Black. On the other hand, the fact that he even had to ask about Draco's lineage proved that he probably wasn't a pureblood (at least not of the Slytherin set).

This was odd in itself. Crowley carried himself like a pureblood somehow, and there was something vaguely Slytherin about him, but Sirius didn't recognize the surname. This only made him like Crowley better.

"Well, sort of cousin," he continued, the alcohol and sudden feeling of camaraderie opening him up. "Never met the boy m'self. 'S parents don' like me much."

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"I see," said Crowley thoughtfully. Definitely a wizard, then. And a powerful one if the stories about escaping Azkaban were true. "The kid's my intern. He's mentioned your name once or twice.* You sounded like the kind of bloke I'd like to meet. Looks like you won't get to meet your erstwhile cousin for a bit, though. I've got him on a job for me in Brazil."


*Although not strictly to Crowley.

[grimsirius.livejournal.com]

“Workin’ for you?” asked Sirius, somewhat surprised. Lucius Malfoy’s only son was working for an unknown man staying at a small, mostly muggle hotel in a small town in the English countryside? The boy should have had no trouble gaining a high ranking position at the Ministry, a place among the Death Eaters, or a cell in Azkaban by now. Sirius wondered whether this development said most about Draco, the Wizarding World, or Crowley. The man he’d been talking to could be far more influential in the Wizarding World these days than Sirius had suspected—he knew a lot had changed since his death, and Remus always changed the subject when Sirius had questions—or the Malfoys could have become a whole lot less influential in the last five years.

Still, Sirius suspected he might be a little drunk, as he couldn’t find it in him to be suspicious. Crowley seemed like an okay sort, a generalization that would currently encompass anyone who was buying drinks. “Well, you seem to have me at a disa...disad…” He paused and squinted. “I don’ know who you are,” he concluded. Then, he picked up his glass, frowned, realizing it was empty, and poured it full again.

"Haven' kept ‘n touch the past few years,” he added. “’Cause I was dead.” He chuckled and shook his head as though this was really funny, but the laughter turned hollow quickly, and he blinked his eyes a few times and gulped down some scotch.

“Horrible,” he whispered, and although he was looking at his glass, it was clear he didn’t mean the scotch.

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, working for me," said Crowley, bemused by the play of reactions across Sirius' face. "There was a scandal involving his father - something about a goblin fetish and a surprise pregnancy - and the kid ended up in a cult after running away from school. I... rescued him, I guess you could say, and gave him a job. He had some particular skills I was looking for." Lying, spying, and mischief making. Good talents for a demon-in-training. He suspected that Sirius wouldn't be bad at it either. If the man were capable, willing, bored and/or broke, Crowley thought he could find some work for him, too.

Taking a sip of his drink, he said, "I told you who I am. Anthony Crowley. Temporarily in exile, I'm pretty much stuck here for my own protection. You wouldn't believe the rest of it, although having been dead, you just might. What was that like anyway?"

[grimsirius.livejournal.com]

Sirius allowed himself a few moments of grim satisfaction after hearing about the Malfoy’s downfall. It seemed that the Black lineage had finally come down to the disgraced Malfoys, a disowned and likely mad son who was never planning to reproduce, and the halfblooded Nymphadora Tonks. It was times like this that Sirius almost wished his mother was still alive.

Crowley’s question took him by surprise. He hadn’t talked about his time behind the veil with anyone. Remus had never asked, managing to sense as he always did that it wasn’t a welcome subject for discussion. Merely thinking about it brought the darkness creeping back along the edges of Sirius’ consciousness. The terror, the emptiness, and the knowledge that someday, no matter what he did, he would go back, was too much to handle.

He shook his head, not sure if he was doing it in response to Crowley, or to try and shake the darkness from his mind. “It was…” he shuddered, and felt surprisingly sober as he tried to think how to start. “Dark. Not normal dark. Nothing at all. Not even enough of me to…” His voice broke, slightly. He wasn’t going to start crying to a stranger he met in a bar, but he couldn’t stop the way his hands shook against the countertop. The bar was dimly lit, but the void at the edge of his consciousness was creeping across his vision. It was going to devour him completely, until there was nothing left.

“No,” he whimpered.

[-moonylupin-.livejournal.com]

It was late, dark, when Remus left, five-fifteen in the morning. He left a note for Uriel, The dining hall was long closed, but the coloured glow from the bar showed people still up, a voice still talking.

He heard well, heard a vaguely familiar voice - Mr. Anthony Crowley, presumably, from the front desk records. Or, more notably, the one he had accidentally caught with Mr. Fell not so very long ago.

"...that like anyway?"

Stunned, the wizard stopped in the entrance of the bar, and watched Sirius Black think about that answer. No, it was not think, he felt that answer, and Remus felt the hair on his arms raise as Sirius spoke.

He couldn't move if he'd wanted to, the sight was horrifying - how does one recover from death? This was a place Remus couldn't follow him to, couldn't save him from. But perhaps... he could help now.

Remus could try.

"Sirius," he choked, walking forward. "Sirius, Sirius, don't think about that." He wrapped thin hands into open, lax, unresponsive hands, looked into eyes that were unseeing. "Look at me. You're alive."

He glanced at the dark-haired fellow across from him, still clutching the shaking Sirius. "I'm terribly sorry, he's been a bit fragile since the ordeal. I should take him to bed."

[grimsirius.livejournal.com]

Sirius was trying to focus on the dim ceiling lamp hanging above him. The orange light might have seemed eerie to some, but the shadows and flickering lights were an anchor holding him to the waking world. He knew the darkness wasn’t real because he was terrified—in the real void, his own consciousness had been taken away from him to the point that he could no longer feel such individualized emotions as terror—but he also knew that if the dark by his mind took him, he would never return. This wasn’t the worst attack he’d ever had, though. He could still sense Crowley, and he still had enough sense to care about what an arse he was making of himself.

He felt Remus grasp his hands, and let his friend’s reassuring voice wash over him. He buried his face, body still shaking uncontrollably, against Remus’ neck. “Oh. Remus,” he said in a hollow voice. “Oh. Thank God.” He quickly abandoned his taxing struggle with his mind, confident that Remus could take care of the rest of it. Childlike and trusting, although still shaking, he let Remus lead him off to bed.