He's locked in.
Most days he remembers he's in a prison, an actual structure made from stone. Other days he thinks it's a figment of his imagination, and that the damp walls are the boundaries of his mind. The soul-suckers are hungry for his sanity, they've long devoured every happy memory, every hope.
But there are always certain things he remembers. Words like rat and hate and murder and innocent. And images, too, of a wolf and a stag, and red hair and black hair and a round little face with green eyes too large.
The soul-suckers let him keep bad memories, and so he can remember first arriving in the prison. He even remembers its name, most of the time. Azkaban. A foreboding name. A dark name. A Dark name.
He was laughing when he first came in. It stopped, eventually. Sometimes gave way to silence, sometimes gave way to shouting. Sometimes gave way to a darkness that crept into his heart.
Heart of a lion, he thinks.
He didn't move for a very long time. At first he couldn't, he was too busy up in his head, laughing and screaming. He'd have an eternity to explore the cell. Doghouse.
The darkness comes and goes, but the more often the confusion and despair occur, the more he realises the importance of reasoning.
Heart of a lion.
The reasoning is the only hope.
The doghouse is four paces across and twelve deep. The food tastes like the water and the water tastes like the nothingness inside him. Sometimes he collects the bowls - he doesn't always give them back straight away, no, no. He stacks them and rearranges them, and pretends they're on a long, long table laden heavily with bright food that appears from below. And then he remembers how important he's decided the Reasoning is, so he pushes the Reasoning around in his mind until it forces out the pretending.
And so he plays differently with the bowls, then, keeping the Reasoning in his head. Don't play pretend, pretend is for the little girl with the purple hair. Blonde hair. No - blue hair. He can't remember, it keeps changing in his mind. He doesn't dwell on it, dwelling on memories restricts the Reasoning and most of the time they only make him feel worse, anyway, and the Reasoning isn't about making him feel worse. It's about keeping him whole, together. Not split in six pieces, where three are dead and one is trapped and one is small and one is alone outside.
Stack the bowls up like a triangle. A pyramid, that's the word. And he tries to remember other words. Other words for the Reasoning. Sense and sanity, and ration- ration- ... Ration? Ration is food. No, he's thinking the wrong word.
He can't reach the ceiling when he stretches up. But that's good, because every day he practices reaching up, anyway, the mind and body feel it's good to do. The stag used to do it next to a broom. Stretch up, up, upwards.
He can fit his arms through the bars, but not past his shoulders. He doesn't like to do it anyway, the soul-suckers can get too close, and so can the screams. They come and go, and come and go. And some go forever, they're lost to the despair, they sink to the darkness and get carried out, so they can rot elsewhere.
The Reasoning is getting stronger, and better.
One day he wakes up and remembers the word he thought was wrong. Rationale.
He chuckles at that.
Ration is the food in the bowls and ale is the drink in the mugs.
He knows he can't remember past that, he has a sense that the ale meant good memories, and the soul-suckers would have eaten them by now. He doesn't push it, just lets the emptiness get comfortable in his mind.
And he thinks about the rat, the rat. The rat! How he would love to have killed the rat. Kill, get revenge, the dirty betraying sewer rat.
Weak and talentless, the murderer, the traitor. The rat, the rat.
He spits and gnashes and scratches.
Stretch up, up to the stag and the red hair, and stretch out. And walk around. Muscles. Legs, arms, head, body.
Twelve bodies.
Twelve bodies and one sewer rat. Six pieces, and two are dead and one is guilty and dead, and one is trapped and one is small and one is alone outside. Maybe four are dead. Maybe five are dead.
Maybe six, and he himself is dead.
He thinks that, he thinks the words but the Reasoning won't let him believe them. It's not true. He is alive, in a stone fortress called Azkaban, and he didn't do it. The truth. He didn't do it.
The sewer rat did, but now the rat is dead.
Yes, the truth. He practices his truths, for truths make the Reasoning even stronger. He his alive, he is innocent, he is in a stone prison called Azkaban, his name is Sirius Dark. No - no, that's not right. Try again.
His name is Sirius Black. Say it out loud. Practice the truths.
"Sirius Black".
Good. Sirius Orion Black.
S.O.B.
Son of a bitch.
He chuckles at that.
Someone outside the steel bars chuckles too, then they cackle, and scream, and wail, and after many more bowl pyramids and up stretches and truth remembering, they are lost to despair. And along comes a new scream.
Sirius tries to talk through the bars, and no-one talks back, and everyone talks back.
Sometimes he hears voices he recognises, but they are far away and he won't talk to them. They are Black and Dark.
He practices his words, and he counts the stone blocks, and he learns his truths. And he walks next to the stone walls and he stretches up and he even remembers the dog. He forgot about the dog.
"Minister, have you finished with your paper? I miss the crosswords, you see."
Later, he chuckles at that.
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AN: This is my first fic, so I would really, really appreciate any feedback you can provide, even if it's three words thirty years from now.
This is probably the type of story that needs to be read a few times to work out the vague references. It's deliberately disjointed to convey Sirius' uncertain grip on reality and time.