A/N - This was supposed to be like 3/400 words but I got a tad carried away (:
Needless to say, this is an AU. James is a doctor/medical examiner, and Sirius is a police officer/detective; no particular time frame was in mind, but this is set in a non-magical world.
Hogwarts Assignment 2, Cryptology, Task 5: Write about a mystery
Warnings: character death, severe grief, & mild swearing
The body washes ashore some time in the night. A fragile looking thing, with damp curls plastered to a sickly pale forehead, the skin around the lips almost blue with cold, and what looks to have once been a rather nice suit is in ruins, barely hanging onto the gaunt frame.
James crouches, gently pressing his middle and index finger to the base of the man's throat, although he seems a lost cause at this point. The pads of his fingers pressing against icy skin, he feels something fluttering like a butterfly's wings. "Shit," he mutters under his breath. And then, louder, "Shit."
"Is that your way of calling me?" his colleague and friend, Sirius Black, shouts from further along the shore, where he is stretching bright yellow tape around the outskirts of the crime scene.
"Get help!" James shouts, heedless of the fact that he is supposed to be the medical professional. "I think — he's alive."
Sirius stands still for a moment, staring blankly at James, his mouth opening and closing as if not quite sure what to say. Eventually, precious seconds later, he settles on, "Well, shit," and calls for more medics.
.oOo.
James is carefully taking notes on the man's vitals when Sirius slinks into the room; they both know Sirius should not be there.
"I'm sorry, Sirius, I —" James trails off, only now noticing the look of sheer dejection over his friend's entire countenance, the tremble of his hands, the abject misery that surrounds him.
Sirius licks his dry lips, red rimmed eyes darting about the room as if not sure what to settle on, the shadows beneath them such a deep purple they appear as hollows in his face. "He's my brother," Sirius finally croaks.
James drops his clipboard.
He does not, as he feels he should, rush to his friend's side, offering words of comfort or solace, providing the much needed support and friendship in times like these. He doesn't even pick up the plastic clipboard, which had cracked upon landing and scattered the patient's files across the smooth linoleum floor.
Instead, he says quite possibly the worst thing to say in a situation such as this: "I didn't know you had a brother."
Sirius' face falls impossibly further, and it takes James a moment to realise that his wracking frame and choking noises are in fact the sobs of a truly destroyed man.
"Sirius, I —" he tries, though he does not get the chance to find out whether the next words from his mouth would be apology or the comfort he should have provided in the first place. Because Sirius is already talking, speaking of his family — which James knows Sirius does not get along with, even if he doesn't know anything else about them — and the little brother he had left behind.
.oOo.
Eventually, Sirius' words trail to a sniffling halt, though James suspects that is more to do with his running out of steam than the story actually being over.
James hands him a tissue from the box of kleenex fitted into the plastic holder on the wall, and Sirius loudly blows his nose, the sound nauseatingly wet. James hands him a few more tissues for good measure.
"I'm sorry, I —" Sirius starts, but James cannot let him go on.
"No, I'm sorry," he says, trying to put as much feeling into the words as he can. Because he is. He's so sorry; sorry that this has happened to the brother Sirius hasn't seen in years, sorry that they had to be the ones called first to the scene, and sorry too that he hadn't been a better friend and known more about Sirius' life prior to their meeting. But these are not sentiments he really knows how to put into words, at least not in this moment.
And so they just sit in silence in the plastic visitors chairs, James' legs slowly going numb where the lip of the chair is digging uncomfortably into his skin as he watches the hands of the clock steadily tick forwards.
At some point, though James can't tell exactly when, Sirius' congested breathing turns into laboured snores. James can't help but think it is for the best.
.oOo.
Sounding more asleep than awake, Sirius whispers "Will he die?" so softly that James almost misses it. A small, selfish part of James wishes he had; that he'd never heard that sound of childlike desperation coming from his best friend's mouth.
James is saved from having to respond but Sirius' snores returning full force. Not that he would have been able to respond, regardless. His profession has a strong rule about never giving definitive answers on things they could not control.
Still, the question haunts James long after he himself falls asleep, having been relieved of duty the moment his superiors discovered his connection to the patient.
Because, the most likely outcome here? Yes.
.oOo.
"I want to find out what happened to him," Sirius says with renewed vigor. He's clearly been awake a lot longer than James has, who is still groggy with sleep and can barely keep his eyes open. Sirius, on the other hand, is bouncing around the room with a sort of manic energy that is rarely a good sign in someone going through so much.
"We've both been taken off his case," James reminds him as gently as he can. "I don't think they'll let you back on …"
Sirius is shaking his head before James even finishes speaking, though he waits a moment before he says anything in response.
"We don't have to be working the case to look into it. We're well within our rights to hold our own investigation," Sirius says with the confidence of a man who does not know he is wrong. Except that Sirius does know he's wrong, he must, because there are so many ways that investigating this themselves could disrupt the official lines of inquiries.
James can tell what this is — a distraction so obvious everyone but Sirius will be able to see it for what it is. But to Sirius it is a renewed purpose, something to do to keep his brother in his thoughts but the cold hospital bed out of them.
And, James is grudgingly willing to admit, it will likely work in the short term.
.oOo.
They receive the call only a few days later. The hospital rings James' phone as Sirius hasn't charged his since that night on the shore.
James puts his phone on loudspeaker, as Sirius will not stop to listen, and they both hear the tinny voice of the doctor unlucky enough to have to make this call. It's the worst part of the job for James — informing the relatives of bad news — but right now he does not have the capacity to feel sympathy for the doctor, for Sirius needs him more.
Sirius, who is currently checking the street address written in smudged biro on the back of his hand and obsessively counting doors.
Sirius, who mutters to himself with each wrong number — "Where is it, where is it, where is it?" — getting increasingly agitated with each building that passes.
Sirius, who will not admit that his brother has died for at least a week after it has happened.
.oOo.
"We'll figure it out," James says as they watch the coffin being slowly lowered into the ground.
It's a piteous affair, though James would never say as much aloud, with only himself and Sirius and the six professional pallbearers. If Regulus had had any friends, they had not been able to find him. And what little of their family remained — relatives whom James had contacted on Sirius' behalf — had not been willing or able to attend the funeral.
The sun shines down brightly, and James sweats uncomfortably in his only suit, wishing he could take the charcoal jacket off but not sure if that would be considered disrespectful. Sirius only stares blankly as the coffin is slowly covered, as if he has mentally checked out of the entire situation once again.
"We'll figure out what happened to him," James repeats. And then, knowing full well how damning the words can be, he adds, "I promise, Sirius. We will figure this out."