it's depressing, it's slightly slash, and it's shit. most importantly, it was written at 2:30 in the morning. who could ask for more?
Sirius' body is a map.
Scars cross over scars, burns lead to bruises, blood flows in rivers. He stares at the lines until they blur, wondering where they're taking him. Wondering what he'll find when he reaches his destination.
James runs his fingers over the skin-atlas, face expressionless. His hands are cold, and Sirius wants to pull away but he cant. Nails tap along the roads that Sirius has been following, blindly, in search for something he cant describe. Happiness, maybe. He wouldn't know, because happiness is not something he's familiar with.
James raises his hazel eyes to Sirius's grey ones, and Sirius is afraid to look back, because there might be hatred, or disgust, or disdain.
But there's nothing.
James walks around to stand behind Sirius, and he stays there, silent. Sirius doesn't dare say anything. He can feel James examining the harder-to-reach places, his back, his neck. The lines are less defined there, less crowded, because what's the point of drawing a map if you can only see it when you're stood between two mirrors?
Sirius despises mirrors.
Finally, James sighs, walks back around and just stares until Sirius has no choice but to look at him.
"Why are you doing this to yourself?"
Sirius doesn't even bother opening his mouth. That's a stupid question, and James knows it. They don't have all the time in the world to discuss this, much as James would like to believe they do, and Sirius' throat would be raw before he finished listing his reasons.
James shakes his head and pulls Sirius' arms out to the sides in a sudden movement. Sirius doesn't fight it. Can't be bothers, too much effort, not enough fucks to give at 3am when you're shirtless and mute.
James shakes his head again, drops Sirius' arms and turns away, running his hand through his hair. This isn't his I'm-hot-and-I-know-it display. This is his I-don't-have-a-fucking-clue-what-to-do-or-say display. Sirius has seen it before- when Remus told them he was a werewolf, when Peter got the letter about his grandmother's death, when Lily twisted her ankle and yelled at James for trying to help.
Sirius wraps his arms around his body, running his fingers absently over the ridged cuts up his sides and ribcage. They're comforting. It's sick, but it's true.
James turns back, walks over, rips Sirius' arms apart again. "I'm not letting you do this anymore."
Sirius blinks at him. That's ridiculous, his eyes say. His mouth doesn't move.
"Don't look at me like that. I'm not letting you do this to yourself anymore. What happens when you cut open a vein?" James is angry-whispering. Don't want to wake Remus and Peter, don't want them to have to see this ugly, flawed skin-bag of bones.
Sirius finds the ability to answer. "I die," he replies, and regrets it instantly, because James' face scrunches up and his mouth drops open, a wordless breath whooshing out. Sirius opens his mouth, too, desperately thinking of a way to fix what just came out of his mouth, but James is gone before he can form words. The bathroom door closes with a snap, not a bang. James doesn't slam doors when he's upset. He leaves quietly, with a whisper, because he's too polite to disturb others.
Sirius is the same.
Difference is, James doesn't have a razor blade in his pocket.
James wakes up to Sirius' eyes, inches away, wide and apprehensive.
He leans up on his elbow, takes in his friend, who's curled up under his covers, shrinking into the pillows. The scars are covered with a baggy jumper, and Sirius is watching him as if he might hit him.
"I'm sorry," Sirius mumbles, and it's the way he says it, scared and cautious and guilty, and James finds himself pulling Sirius' head to his chest and holding him so tight that Sirius can't breathe. James knows Sirius can't breathe, feels him squirming, but he just holds on tighter.
He'd rather Sirius suffocated than bled to death on the bathroom floor.
"How am I supposed to help you?" James whispers.
It's nearly morning. The dormitory is filled with a grey-tinged light, and Sirius is curled up to James' side, his head on James' chest. James runs his fingers along the line of cigarette burns on Sirius' hip. They clash with the thick, faint mark of a whip, and James knows Sirius didn't do that- his father did.
"I don't think you can," Sirius mumbles in reply. James chews his lip, trying to find an argument and failing. He knows he can't stop Sirius drawing pain on his own body. He knows it, and he hates it.
He traces the burns again, and frowns. Three scorch marks, a diagonal line. Smooth skin, another scorch mark, higher up. He flashes back to first year, Sirius hanging halfway out the window to point out his namesake- "See the three in a line? That's Orion's belt right- and there, that bright one- that's me, that's Sirius.'
James wonders if the pattern was intentional.
He moves his hand to Sirius' upper arm and begins feeling his way along it, hands drifting lightly over ripped skin. At first, it's just marks, random patches of self-hate and hurt- but then he feels it. There's meaning, direction, and the familiarity of it all hits James like a ton of bricks. A small cross for a religion Sirius never believed in. A small, wavy line, for the snakes that hovered over his past and future. Four identical lines for the four marks that he missed on the Transfiguration test, the reason he got an E instead of an O. A diagram of the path from the Whomping Willow to the Shrieking Shack, etched into the crook of his elbow.
These aren't scars.
These are maps, memories, secrets, stories.
"What's this one?" He asks suddenly, stopping at a long, ragged scar on Sirius' shoulder. Sirius stiffens, pauses, speaks. "That one wasn't me."
James thinks about this for a while, imagines Sirius' father taking a knife to his own son, tries to distract himself. "This one?" It's a bruise the size of a plate on his lower back. James circles it with his index finger, and Sirius shivers. "Um. I, um, threw myself at a sink."
James nods, pondering this. "This?" It's a messy A, marked in his hip with shallow cuts. Sirius winces. "I cheated on Kelsey," he whispered.
They carry on like this until the sun has nearly risen. By this point, they're both sat up, Sirius' shirt held up by one hand while the other motions jerkily to various marks and flaws, speaking in stop-and-start bursts. He weaves stories, and the illustrations are on his body. James listens, head in one hand, eyes flickering from Sirius' lips to his hands to his poor, tortured body.
Finally, Sirius stops talking. He drops his hand to the bed, closes his mouth, focuses his gaze on his knee. James waits until Sirius looks at him, and then he leans forward and kisses him. It's soft, gentle, kind, everything Sirius craves and everything he refuses to let himself feel.
When James pulls back, he brushes his hand against Sirius' cheek. "Now your lips have a story, too," he says quietly, "And it's a happy one, because you need one of those."
Sirius' body is a map.
Scars cross over scars, burns lead to bruises, blood flows in rivers. The roads take him to a bed in a dark dormitory, sharing secrets and tales of betrayal and hurt. They take him to a windowsill, smoking cigarettes out into the summer sky, leaning his head on James' shoulder as smoke curls around their heads. They take him to the Great Hall, where he finally lets himself eat, and to the Hospital Wing, where he finally lets himself be fixed.
Eventually, all maps will fade. But the destination will still be there. It's called Happiness; he finally found it.