i.

jilylicious:

Reach for something you won’t be touching for a long time and keep catching emptiness. That’s what Azkaban was, empty. Empty cloaks, empty faces, empty corridors, empty minds.

Sirius Black could swear he felt a hand wrap around his thin wrists, strong and long fingers. He could swear that little scar on his index finger was there, he could swear Remus Lupin was just next to him seconds ago but Remus had this smell and Sirius couldn’t smell him no matter how hard he tried. Azkaban only smelled like fear and nothing else. Fear had a weird smell, it smelled sour and it reminded of Grimmauld Place, 12. Sirius wouldn’t go back to that place if it killed him but his mother had to haunt him someway, didn’t she?

Sirius looked out of his cell into the endless sea through the broken bricks of the wall separating him from reality and saw that the new moon was showing her face slowly. Sirius had forgotten what decent sleep meant, he wasn’t used to sleeping on stone floors. He was feeling a little out of his mind but he didn’t care one bit.

“How long does it take to get used to cold stone floors when all you know is warmth and long limbs?” he asked her softly. After all the moon knew Remus the best after Sirius. “Help me.”

Azkaban had simple rules, if you stayed silent they left you alone longer. Sirius kept forgetting that simple rule and empty eyes behind glasses, a small baby with green eyes being taken away from his arms, a small boy betraying him, a wolf howling with pain were all taking turns in his mind. He felt like he was being shaken awake by someone, it was a very similar feeling but instead of soft fabric his back was hitting sharp stones. He thought he was back in third grade and Remus was trying to wake him up from a nightmare, no one could wake him up from this one.

When the dementors left him on his own as he was crawling to find somewhere he can hold onto, Sirius felt something break in him. He was never going to be where he felt safe, he was never going to get out of this place, no one did. The only moon to his stars were the dark circle out there now. He was a convicted murderer after all, he didn’t need to get used to stone floors, it was what he deserved. James had lied on cold stone floors when Sirius had failed him. Remus had lied on damp forest floor in fifth year when Sirius had failed him. Regulus had lied Merlin knows where because Sirius had failed his little brother, too.

Sirius had done more damage than good in his 22 years and for once, he was taking the responsibility for it. His shoulders were crumbling underneath all the weight he was feeling, he didn’t care his mind was else where. 

He always had longer limbs surround him. When he had Regulus and they slept together because Walburga was not feeling well and it was too scary to sleep alone, when the werewolf and he took turns having nightmares and they slept together tangled with each other because it was easier to share nightmares rather than swallow them whole and when he was shaking in his new bed at the age of sixteen from the pain he was feeling in his heart and body, messy black hair was brushing on his cheek calming him down; Sirius Black had trouble remembering the last time he had slept alone. The memories that hurt the most were the ones from the last few years. Until everything went to hell, he shared his bed with the person he planned to share his life with. There was no getting used to stone floors and there was no forgetting long limbs with scars.

Sirius found the darkest corner of his cell and slowly transformed into Padfoot, he was better at dealing with all of these feelings than Sirius ever was. As he circled to lay down, he curled his tail under his head and fell asleep to the soft snoring in his ears that he knew couldn’t be real. Sirius Black stopped believing in his own mind knowing it was the only way he would survive.