Sirius Black (misterpadfoot) wrote in changedrpg, @ 2011-09-24 17:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !date: 1997 - september, sirius black |
Who: Sirius, NPC's
When: Saturday evening.
Where: Nameless London muggle pub.
What: Sirius finds out some unsettling news.
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Open/Closed: Closed
Sirius didn't even know why he was there. He'd put up with more annoying things than Owls every few days, in the past. He was mates with JAMES, he'd put up with "siriusly?" jokes for practically twenty bloody years, he could handle obnoxious. (And maybe he still laughed at the joke, too.) But the letters had been less angry and more sad and desperate, and Sirius wasn't heartless. They were also vague enough to engage his curiosity. His animagus form might be a dog, but that didn't mean he didn't have a cat's curiosity now and then.
So he'd agreed to a meet up at a pub. He'd thought about dragging Prongs or Moony along, but in the end he'd done what he always did when he was walking into something he thought might be dangerous, and gone alone so it was only him who might get in trouble. It was a daft strategy and always had been, but he still kept trying it.
Once he spotted the girl at the bar, he recognized her. Sirius hadn't remembered her name or anything else about her, but her face was familiar. She'd cut her hair short since last he'd seen her, and dyed in a garish yellow that looked a bit like she'd dunked her head in a vat of bleach, and didn't suit her at all. But he remembered the blue eyes, and the curls, and the tattoo on her wrist. (A girly bloody heart, which he'd rolled his eyes at even while he hit on her.) He didn't pick up that many women these days, so he should have recalled earlier, but he'd never exactly been picky about who he took to bed, and she'd been fit and willing and he'd been in his cups for one reason or another. She was still fit, but she looked older though, and tired.
And to Sirius, who'd seen a lot of terrified people over his years in the Order, she looked really bloody scared.
He sat down opposite her and ordered himself a drink, he had a feeling he'd need it.
Her name, she reminded him, was Candice. Candy, he'd called her. Sirius then remembered spending the night making bad innuendos about how sweet she tasted. Honestly, sometimes even he didn't know why birds went for him.
She talked all in a rush with big, hopeless motions of her hands and teary blue eyes, going on about family and going home and them not understanding, and her not knowing what to do.
It wasn't until she shoved a photo into his hands that he actually caught on. "Oh fuck," he breathed, downing his second whiskey and gesturing helplessly for more.
She frowned, and ran a shaky hand through her short hair. "I need your help. I'm sorry, I never meant-"
"No, whatever you need, love." Looking at the picture, there wasn't any way to deny it. The kid looked like a mirror image of Sirius when he was that age, only with bluer eyes and curlier hair. "Money, a place to st-"
"No, not like that." Candy rubbed her hand over her eyes. "I have to go home, and I can't take him. He's got no one else to go to, all my family is back home, and they wouldn't. . . they're old fashioned. You do things a certain way, and running around Europe getting pregnant isn't how it's done. They'd make him miserable. Me miserable. He's a good boy. He's outside. You have to take him."
Sirius stared at her. "What? You left him outside a bloody pub? Are you mad or just unfit?"
He wasn't really surprised at the slap, but the bursting into tears afterward was disconcerting. "Yes, all right? I am. But he's not alone, he's with a friend's daughter, she sits for him sometimes."
"Look, I know he's. . . but you don't even know me. I could be a serial killer for all you know! Or a drunk, or a prat-"
"You're the best option he has, believe me," Candice said, grim-voiced and flat-sounding, even if you accounted for her weird Yank accent. "Just meet him. And then tell me no, and it'll be your fault when he's hauled off to some foster home or orphanage or however it works here!"
"Look, your family might be right arseholes, but they'll come around-"
"You don't know my family," Candy said. "They won't. I know they won't, and I don't want him raised in that, like I was."
"So stay, toss them off, I'll help you out with money or what not and you can keep him-"
"I can't. My dad is sick and things are a mess and I just can't." She stood, knocking over her chair in her rush and drawing a deep breath, then yanking on his hand. "Just come outside. I know you were a good guy. I asked. . . well I asked. My friend is like you. With. . . you know. Magic." She whispered the last guiltily. "And Dylan. . . he made a lizard float, once, when he was playing. If my family saw. . ." She pursed her lips and shook her head. "He'll be better with you."
Sirius had no idea who had told her he was a good guy, but he doubted the source, whoever it was. He hastily tossed down some money to pay for the drinks and let her drag him outside to where a gawky teenage girl, much younger than Candy, stood with a boy of maybe four, which put the age about right for what Sirius remembered. His hair was longer than it was in the picture she'd showed him, he was wearing half an ice cream down his front and the rest on his face. He was sticky, tiny, and wide-eyed as Candy dragged him over, and introduced him to Dylan as "Daddy". Two small suitcases sat on the curb next to him.
Dylan stared up with big, grave eyes and Sirius stared back, feeling a little like he was standing on a track about to be mowed down by a train. Candy knelt down next to him and hugged him, heedless of the sticky. "You're going to stay with Daddy for a while, like we talked about, remember? Mommy has to go away for a while? But I'll write you letters and Daddy will take care of you and show you all about magic and things."
She babbled and Sirius tried to break in and say that he COULDN'T take a kid and they'd do something else when suddenly she was standing again and hugging HIM. "Don't fuck it up. Just be good to him." she hissed in his ear, and then turned, grabbing the teenager's hand and dragging her away, both of them practically running, leaving Sirius with a silent toddler who was starting to make profoundly disturbing sniffly noises that meant he might start to cry.
"FUCK ME," Sirius growled under his breath. Right before Dylan burst into tears. Sirius blanched and awkwardly reached for him.
What the hell was he going to do NOW?