InsaneJournal

WHO: Eames, Sirius and Remus.
WHAT: Sirius' attempt at a tantrum and a few heart-to-hearts.
WHEN: [Backdated] Same time as this.
WHERE: Some random pub.
STATUS/RATING: Complete/PG (swearing)

Sirius had realized his wand was gone when he’d slipped a hand into his back pocket and found only his PDA. For a moment, panic had swept through him. Then he’d remembered who was currently acting as his babysitter and what he’d said about the wand and decided Eames had taken it, which was marginally better but didn’t do much to improve his mood. Wands were funny things. Personal. You shouldn’t take them without permission. But Sirius had other things on his mind on the seemingly endless, incredibly tense walk towards the pub, and didn’t say a word. Instead he let Eames lead him, feeling a ring of bruises form beneath the other mans fingers, decorating his upper arm. It hurt, but in a way that matched his mood and not nearly enough to distract him from his own blood rushing through his ears of the way his heart seemed to be threatening to punch a hole right through his chest.

He was calming down, feeling a little more of himself return to him with every step he took away from Regulus, every shallow breath of clean, cold air. He was still jumpy, twitching every time Eames’ grip tightened against him. Adrenaline was still singing through the young wizards veins, setting every nerve alight. He was shaking a little, hiding it by curling his hands into fists so tightly he couldn’t feel his fingers by the time the pub was in sight and he was being led over the threshold. It was too early for the place to be busy, and apart from the two new arrivals, there were only two other patrons.

Sirius finally managed to pull his arm free and strode over to the barman, croaking out an order. A second later a couple of shot glasses and a bottle of some strong, clear spirit had been pushed in front of him. Glowering silently, Sirius poured a messy shot for himself, threw it back, then repeated the process two more times before he scrabbled in his pocket for a cigarette and lit it with the wandless, wordless charm he’d learned from Remus.

Oh fuck. Remus was going to be so disappointed when they heard what he’d done. So would James, if only he’d been allowed to stay.

Taking a deep drag on the cigarette, shooting the barman a look so murderous the man didn’t even complain about the smoking, Sirius reached for the bottle and began pouring a fresh round of drinks, waiting for Eames to speak. Because it was too much to hope that the other man would just let him get drunk in peace.

Eames, on the other hand, had just ordered a pint of whatever beer was on tap. "Pick a booth. There is no fucking way I'm standing here watching you get shit-faced," he snapped. The anger that he'd been holding off was gradually getting stronger and stronger as the calm feeling he almost always had during fights began to dissipate. The barman placed his pint in front of him after a few seconds, so Eames paid for both drinks and then lifted his own glass. "Move, now."

Once they were sitting, Eames reached into his jacket pocket and lifted out Sirius' wand, then placed it very carefully on the table between them. "This stays on the table at all times. And I want to be able to see it at all times." That said, he sat back and just watched Sirius, taking the occasional drink of beer as he did so, and he stayed quiet.

After a few minutes, he lit a cigarette and did his best to enjoy it, despite the godawful tension surrounding the two of them. Still, he stayed quiet.

He said nothing as he smoked a second cigarette as well, figuring that Sirius would eventually feel the need to fill the quiet with something. Eames himself had no problem with sitting in silence for as long as it took, and was settling in for probably the most awkward few hours he'd had since he arrived in Colligo. He was still angry, but he was much better at controlling his emotions than Sirius would probably ever be.

And he stayed quiet.

Sirius slipped into a booth, watching as Eames took his wand out of his jacket pocket and placed it on the table between them. For a moment, he considered grabbing it and just leaving. But that would mean facing other people and he really wasn’t up for that right now. Eventually he’d go to his friends, but not now. Now he’d stay here with Eames, who was clearly furious with him and that was fine, he could cope with that. So Sirius shrugged, took another shot, and slumped back against the booth, pulling one leg up to his chest and starting to smoke his cigarette down to a butt, letting the nicotine slow his heart.

He was waiting for his thoughts to calm down, to stop ricocheting around his skull like spells in a duel so he could get a grasp on what had just happened. But each and every time he tried to grab onto something coherent, it slipped away, back into the whirlwind that was his own head. Sometimes Sirius wondered if everyone felt like this, or if it was just him. His hand, slung over his knee, flexed, long fingers stretching absently before starting to tap a fast, erratic rhythm against his kneecap. The quiet, persistent tapping of fingertips against denim was the only sound in that booth for a long moment.

The animagus reached for his back pocket, finding his PDA and firing off a text to Remus. ’I fucked up. Then another, with an address and an added message; ’Come find me?’ He needed him here, he realized, in a way that was almost embarrassing. Especially with James gone. Sirius ran on impulsive urges. Remus was sensible, knew what to say to him in a way that only a friend who’d known him since he was eleven could. He wanted him here, wanted that calm that the other boys company instilled in him. Finishing off the text, Sirius slipped his phone back away and sat back into the silence.

But Sirius had never been any good at keeping quiet. Especially when there was this much tension. Especially when the inside of his head was so loud and angry that he needed something, anything, to drown it out. Sirius rolled his eyes, finally discarding the cigarette, which had burnt down to nothing in his hand, and taking yet another gulp of clear, burning spirit before turning his dark stare onto the man sat opposite. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse from screaming.

“For fucks sake, Eames. If you’re going to yell at me or put me in fucking detention or whatever can you just get on and do it? That way we can all go home?”

Eames stayed quiet for maybe half a minute more, then rubbed at his nose before sitting up straighter in his seat. He didn't raise his voice, and he didn't ball his hands into fists, but by Christ, he was fuming at that point.

"Is this how it's worked for you in the past? You have your temper tantrum, someone comes along and smacks your arse before sending you to your room with no supper, and that's it? You act out like a spoilt brat, you get treated like a naughty little boy and that's the end of it? You're not at your bloody school now and you haven't been for, what, three? four years? So why the fuck are you still acting like a child? Phillipa has more common sense than you do and she's six years old, Sirius."

He paused at that moment and pinched at the bridge of his nose because there was a headache building and he really didn't want to have to deal with this bullshit right now. He was more than annoyed with himself for getting so worked up about Arthur returning without some rather crucial memories (in Eames’ humble opinion), and Sirius' current attempt at "batshit crazy" was really just too much for him to cope with right now.

"I meant what I said on the way here. I don't give a monkeys about your family feud, I don't know anything about it and to be honest, I really don't want to. I have more than enough going on right now without your moodswings going fucking supernova on us all. But beating the shit out of your own brother when he's clearly not well? Is that really something you want to do?"

Sirius was very used to being shouted at. Usually it just rolled straight off him, and he’d straighten his collar, shoot a cocky grin in his accusers direction and carry on living his life. So when Eames started shouting, although it hurt a little bit more, in the same way it’d hurt when Ariadne, Juno and Morgana found out - because these people were his friends, Sirius did a rather good impression of someone who was only partially listening, slumping back against his booth and lighting up another cigarette. So he was childish, he didn’t think things through and he got away with far too much. All very well and good, and all things were true and well-established. Sirius decided not to point out that his punishments had actually been a bit more than a slap on the arse during his childhood, that his temper tantrums had pretty much been perfected to draw a certain woman’s attention away from Regulus himself. Eames didn’t need to know about that. No’ one did.

Sirius was very aware that Eames was dealing with Arthur coming back without his memories, knew this was probably cutting the older man up. After all, hadn’t he been the one Eames had drunkenly rambled to after the man had left the first time? He knew all that, without having to have it pointed out to him – Sirius was good at picking up things like that in people he cared about. Hell, he could have told when something was wrong with James from more or less the other side of the city. And if Eames was taking some of that out in this rant, as well as putting Sirius in place for his recent actions, then who was he to judge? It wasn’t as if he’d be any help in any other way.

Still, the jar about beating the shit out of Regulus hit a bit of a nerve. “I didn’t mean to hurt him!” Sirius snapped. “It was a fucking tripping jinx. It’s not like he’s never done it to me.” Although all the times they and their friends had clashed in school corridors, Sirius had had the foresight to catch himself before he head-butted the floor. Sirius scowled, taking a drag of the cigarette and slumping a little lower in his seat. He wasn’t going to think about what he’d done to Regulus. If he had his way, he wasn’t going to think about the stinking Death Eater piece of shit ever again. He was done. For real, this time. He wasn’t going to try again. There were only so many times you could leave yourself open to disappointment.

Merlin, where was Remus?

Sirius’ anger rolled over in his stomach, making his features harden and his heart pulse hard for another moment. He was sick of everyone taking Regulus’ side. If Juno, Ariadne and Eames had met Regulus as little as a year ago, there was no doubt the other boy would have had nothing to do with them. He’d have tortured them and killed them with just a nod from one of the other men he worked with. Two years ago and he’d have been lecturing them at wandpoint on how it was their place to serve wizards, how they belonged with House Elves scuttling around after the people with magic, catering for their other whim. How they weren’t worth anything, not to Regulus, or to the rest of his Family, not to any magical people. He’d have called them scum, dirt.

“You don’t know anything about him,” Sirius told Eames, coldly meeting the equally harsh stare coming from the other side of the table. “You have no fucking idea. He’d have killed you a year ago. Hell, if the right person arrived here tomorrow, he probably still would.” Sirius stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette, cocking an eyebrow. “But whatever. You don’t have to worry. I’m not going anywhere near him.”

A tripping jinx? Really? Whatever. "So you tripped him, and he fell, but it's okay because it's happened before. I see." He paused at that point and lit another cigarette, taking a moment to try and let the familiar actions calm him down. "Tell me this. In all the time you two were jinxing each other and doing fuck knows what with other spells, did either of you ever lie, unmoving, on the ground for however long that delightful scene took, while the other stood screaming down at them, just from being tripped? Fucking hell, Sirius, you looked like you could cheerfully have killed him!"

Oh, fuck, his head was really starting to get sore. Wonderful. Tilting his head slightly to one side for a moment, he put his free hand up to his temple, as if he could hold back the pain until this was finished. He watched Sirius' emotions play across his face as he straightened up and took another drink of beer, then listened to what else his friend had to say. He very carefully did not react to Sirius telling him that Reg would have killed people in his past, given that he himself had probably done far worse things in his time, and would do again.

"You're right, I don't. I know nothing about Reg, other than what I've learnt here. I know that when you were the version of you that had been to that wizardy jail, he was practically shitting bricks with worry over you. And yes, I know I wasn't myself either, but I still remember it. I know he's fucked up a couple of times, but as far as I can tell, he was doing his utmost to change, and I know that since he's come back, he's been different, he's been ill. I haven't seen him, but based on what he's managed to put on the network and what Ariadne's told me, even I can tell that. But you've washed your hands of him, so that's fine, I'll just leave it there."

He reached over and picked up Sirius' wand then, and looked at it before spinning it round his fingers like he would do with a biro or pencil. "What would you have done to me? What can this do?" he asked, not even bothering to look at Sirius any more, concentrating more on getting some more nicotine into his system.

Fucked up a couple of times. Sirius almost scoffed at that. If that was what you could call the things he’d seen Death Eaters do, then whatever. But Eames hadn’t. None of that lot had, and that was the problem. To them it was words on a page, a fleeting part of a story set around Sirius’ own Godson. To Sirius it was his life, his friends that had been killed and tortured every other day. But there was no point saying that, no point trying to explain how what Regulus had done had affected him, because he’d just come off as the pathetic bastard trying to make people feel sorry for him. Which wouldn’t even work because even Sirius couldn’t feel sorry for a bloke who had done what he had just done.

Sirius winced at the way Eames picked up his wand and started twirling it. If he’d snatched up Eames’ totem, which from what he could tell was about as personal to him as Sirius’ wand was to him, the other man would have flipped out. Still, he didn’t say anything, just bit down on his cheek and kept his eyes fixed on the spinning wand. He’d seen that thing snapped before his very eyes, or at least remembered seeing it. Before they sent him to Azkaban. But that hadn’t happened yet and he still had the bloody thing and was it wrong to be a little overprotective?

Then Eames was asking another question and Sirius’ gaze snapped to his face, the surprise obvious on his features and enough to overcome his temper for a moment. It hadn’t been a big shock to anyone when Sirius’ animagus form had been revealed to them. Man’s best friend, and Sirius could certainly be that. If he decided a person deserved it from him. And he’d decided it about Eames a long time ago. Sirius was as likely to turn a wand on him as he was any of his friends from home. Hadn’t he dropped the wand the moment he’d recognized his face?

“Nothing,” he told Eames, his tone suddenly a little offended. “I wouldn’t have done anything. Ever.” As for what it could do... Sirius hesitated, confused. It was a wand. It could do all manner of things, if he wanted it to. “What d’you mean?”

"You shoved me back about five foot before you even knew who I was, and then pointed it at me. And then you saw me," Eames pointed out, leaning forward over the table, "so I don't think it's too much of a stretch to work out you were going to use the thing and mean it. So what I'm asking is, what was your planned... spell or whatever. Or was it your equivalent of pointing a gun at someone to make them stop?"

He hadn't seen Sirius' reaction when he'd lifted the wand, so he didn't realise how he was reacting every time he spun the thing. He put it back down on the table after another few seconds, though, glancing over at Sirius as if to tell him to leave it alone for a while longer.

He laughed quietly at Sirius' question, although there wasn't any humour in it, and he just felt tired and sore all of a sudden. "You've seen what I do, back home. I become other people, I literally step into their skin. I can't do that by simply spotting them on the street or following them around a shopping centre for an afternoon. I have to learn those people, inside and out. It takes a lot of time, effort and research to do that. I use every available method I know of to find out information about people, and I extrapolate from there to build my forgeries. I've been doing this for years now, and I do it all the time. I know more about Ariadne than her own parents do, for example." He stopped at that point and actually looked at Sirius. "But I don't know about you. And, by extension, anyone from your home. You asked me not to read the books, so I haven't. It's probably why you thought my version of you was off, and it's definitely why I don't know what that," and he gestured towards the wand with his cigarette, "is capable of. I genuinely have no idea."

”I dunno,” Sirius muttered grumpily, picking at the table top to give his hand and fingers something to do. To be honest, he didn’t even remember that moment very well. It was all a jumbled mess in his head. “Stunner, probably.” It wasn’t as if Sirius barged into anything with a plan. Even a fight. Especially a fight. Yet another knot loosened in Sirius’ chest as Eames put his wand down, as if the Forger had been holding some piece of him in a tight grip and had just released it along with his wand. A sliver of wood was finally prised from the table under Sirius’ nail and the animagus pulled it up, finally glancing up through lowered brows to look at Eames.

“What d’you want to know?” Sirius asked, suddenly feeling defensive. Then he rolled his eyes, grabbing the bottle of spirit and helping himself to a generous splash of the clear liquid before sighing and throwing it back. The alcohol needed to kick in soon, before he got hold of himself properly again and there wasn’t a buffer between his thoughts and reality. “My family’s…” He started off, speaking to the now empty shot glass he was spinning between his fingers. “They’re pureblood fanatics.” Sirius hadn’t considered Eames might not know what that meant. “My mother was an abusive bitch. My Father seemed to think me and Regulus were part of the furniture. I got sorted into a house at school that kind of went against everything they believed in, and by the time I was sixteen I hated them all. Everything they said, everything they believed in. I hated it. Their pureblood fucking mania. Regulus was their perfect golden boy and I was the blood traitor, shame of the family. We fought all the time, and then we reached a point where I thought that if I stayed in that house they’d honest to Merlin kill me. So I ran away.” The story was making him angry again, a silent pressure building in his chest. Sirius took a deep breath and wrapped his fingers hard around the cold glass.

“That was the last time I saw Regulus until I came here.” Sirius admitted, lifting his gaze with a shrug. “There was a war. We had different sides. People died. A lot of people. It was still going on when I came here. That,” Sirius nodded to his wand, which sat unused in the middle of the table. “That’s capable of all sorts.” Sirius struggled to explain himself. It was difficult, harder than he thought it would be to explain an entire world to someone who didn’t know anything about it. The worst thing a person could do with a wand.

“I suppose… There are three curses that are ‘unforgivable.’ You can get a life sentence for using any of them on another person. The Imperious curse, which gives the caster complete control of the other person. The Cruciatus curse…” Sirius’ shoulders tensed at a memory. “Which is just… pain. Torture. And the Killing curse. Which is pretty much self-explanatory. It’s instant.” Sirius leaned in a little, trying to push his next point over to Eames because it was important, deathly important that the other man understood what he was about to say. He was suddenly exhausted. This was more information about himself and his previous life than Sirius had ever offered a person, especially in one sitting. It made him incredibly uncomfortable, and he found himself glancing hopefully towards the door before turning back to Eames.

”But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. You have to mean it for them to work, and I never have. I’m not like them.” His voice was rising, a sharp edge suddenly claiming it.

Eames had been watching Sirius as he spoke, nodding in the right places and committing everything to memory. He said nothing as the younger man paused to work out what he would say next, and he only really visibly reacted when Sirius leant forward and seemed almost on the verge of panic.

"I know. I know you wouldn't," he said, sitting forward in his own seat. "You're many things, Sirius, but you're not the sort of person who could cast those spells and mean them. I do know that much about you. You can calm down again."

"No you wouldn't," Remus spoke up quietly from the side, completely disregarding what Eames had said. The man had no idea what Sirius was really capable of if it got right down to it, and Sirius was damn lucky Remus hadn't been there for what had happened with Regulus, or the talking to he'd received from the older man would have seemed warm and fuzzy by comparison. "But we both know that doesn't really mean anything. After all, you don't have to use those spells to be a cruel, reckless bastard."

It was harsh, and Remus felt a bit awful even as he said it, but Sirius needed to hear it. He was on some kind of slow downward spiral and he was going to tear himself apart if he didn't stop. "You're my best friend," he said, sitting down next to Sirius, "and I would do anything for you. But you're a Black in a lot of ways. It's not really your fault, because nobody could come out of that house completely right in the head. You're proud and stubborn and sometimes cruel even when you don't mean to be...though more often than not, you do mean it, however you justify it to yourself. It may show itself differently with you than them, and it's certainly not Purist, but it's still there. If anyone knows that, it's me." They didn't talk about the incident with the Willow, but it was an ever present thing between them. And Remus had no problem using it to make Sirius see sense now and again.

"And yet," he said calmly, though he clearly wasn’t softening toward the other man, "I still put up with your sorry arse for one reason or another." He gave Sirius a small, grudging smile, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. "Now, tell me how you fucked up this time."

Eames was leaning in, and for a moment Sirius felt that rush of relief that came when he realized that he hadn’t lost someone because of his own shortcomings. He didn’t want Eames to think he was like the rest of his family, had spent so long trying to escape the shackles of his own last name that he didn’t think he could cope if it followed him here as well. And although he’d rather loved the freedom that had come from the older man not knowing him, not knowing his past, perhaps it wasn’t a completely awful thing that he’d shared. But then an all-too familiar voice was speaking and Sirius could almost feel Padfoot’s hackles raising defensively.

Sirius glanced up at Remus, looking a little offended until he met the steady stare of his friend and his expression drained away. Instead he helped himself to another drink – how many was that now? – and grit his teeth against Remus’ words. It took everything he had not to snap back, even as Remus settled next to him. Sirius still had too much energy coursing through him, was too agitated right now to listen to this. His heart had picked up again, his fingers tapped, and his breathing was shallow and a little too quick. Every word Moony said to him was true – the buried comment about the Snape incident did not go unnoticed, and Sirius threw back the shot of burning alcohol greedily to try and numb the way those words hit. He sat, silently brooding and avoiding Remus’ gaze, instead spinning the shot glass from one hand to another across the table, the twitching of his knee picking up its pace until his whole frame shook.

“I didn’t...!!” He all but exploded, head snapping up to glare at Remus, although he wasn’t quite sure why. “I only… He…” The idea of telling the story lit something in him, and Sirius slammed his eyelids closed and breathed hard for a moment, before opening his mouth to speak. “Me and Regulus. We… I’m done. I’m fucking done with him, Moony. Don’t make me try again. He’s as bad as the rest of them and I told him and I’m fucking done, okay? Prongs is gone and I just... I’m done pretending I can forget what Regulus did.” He shot Eames a look, trying to press his point home with everyone sat in this booth.

Eames nodded a hello to Remus, then listened while the other wizard gave Sirius yet another scolding. He probably didn't look like it, though, since he was relighting his cigarette which had gone out while he was listening to Sirius, and then finishing his pint. He didn't quite get the exact connotations of "pureblood" simply because nobody had ever mentioned mudbloods or suchlike, but the implications of it were more than enough, and went quite a ways towards explaining some of Reg's more... well, stupid moments. How refreshing it was to learn that people were exactly the same, no matter what country or society they came from, he thought.

Looking up sharply when Sirius mentioned his friend being gone, he couldn't quite hold back a wince as his brain protested painfully at the quick movement. This place really was fucking awful at times. He raised an eyebrow when Sirius looked over at him. "I'm certainly not asking you to forget anything. If anything, I'm asking you to keep everything in mind. But you’ve made your feelings abundantly clear for now."

Eames slid out of the booth then, and lifted his empty pint glass, before looking at Remus. "I'm getting a refill, and Sirius has got his gettings from me for today. What'll you have?"

Remus would normally have been more polite. He would have made an effort to talk to Eames and see how he was doing, or at least acknowledged him. But, for the moment at least, his attention was focused on Sirius. The older man might have been Sirius’s friend, but he was too soft with him. Sirius would take any excuse and push it as far as it would go if allowed. And right now, his behaviour didn’t need to be excused. He couldn’t just ignore the question, but he didn’t move his eyes away from Sirius as he spoke. “Nothing,” he said. “I didn’t come to drink.”

Sirius’s stilted explanation didn’t impress him and he just raised an eyebrow. “Don’t hide behind James,” he said. “I’m not everyone else. You’d have done the same bloody thing, whatever it was, if he was here and you know it.” He took a drag of his cigarette. “I didn’t ask for a load of excuses. I asked you what you did this time to fuck up. This isn’t about what Regulus did or didn’t do, or how your family was a bunch of wankers. This is about you and your issues and the fact that you need to bloody deal with them and stop hiding behind how awful your family was to you.” He was done playing games with Sirius. The man could give him an honest answer if he bothered trying, and he wasn’t going to settle for anything less.

“Judging by your rambled excuses,” he said, “it involves your brother. So what happened this time thanks to the pair of you acting like mental children and not being able to be civil around one another for five minutes?”

Eames shrugged and walked away from the booth when Remus brushed him off, leaving Sirius to him for the moment. Standing at the bar, Eames was waiting on his drink when he remembered that he'd turned off his phone earlier in the day. He'd been working and didn't want to get distracted by rereading old text messages. Holding his cigarette in his mouth, he checked his pockets until he found the PDA and turned it on. It took a moment to boot up, which didn't bother Eames all that much because the barman had his pint ready at that point, so he paid for the drink and then went back to checking the network. He instantly wished he hadn't bothered.

"Fuck, no. Oh, fucking... Fuck."

He checked the network again, finding Phil's first message, and then Arthur's private message for Ariadne and himself, and all the while, he was checking his totem to check that this was reality. Unfortunately, it was. He was rapidly coming to the conclusion that this place hated him. First Arthur showing up and not being his Arthur, then Sirius exploding like that over Reg, and now...

"Oh, Jesus, Phils..."

Pinching at the bridge of his nose once more, he shoved his phone back in his pocket and picked up his pint. Feeling ever-so-slightly dazed by what he'd just read, he took a misstep and spilt some of his beer, which was completely unlike him. Swearing to himself, he took the drink over to the table where Remus and Sirius were sitting and set it down in front of the two wizards. Since he now had no intention of drinking it, one of them could have it, he didn't care who. His head was pounding by now, but he had to explain in case Sirius thought he was running out on him so he forced the words out and made what had happened officially real. "I, I have to go. Mal, she's. She's gone. Phillipa's on her own. Well, no, she's with Arthur, but I have to go."

He didn't even bother to wait for them to say anything, he just turned and headed out of the pub, intending to run back home once he was outside.