This one is quite short but I really felt like adding anymore would just take away from it. Enjoy and please feel free to tell me what you love or hate about it (nicely please).

January 1978

"I don't care about them."

James looked up at his best friend. The tears that had been streaming down his face only moments ago had finally seemed to have stopped. However, the hurt was still more than evident. James could see it in every inch of his face, in every aspect about his demeanor.

"I know that you don't," James finally answered in a soft voice. He wasn't sure that he believed the words. Not completely. He knew that in the broadest sense they were true, but in the tiny details, they were a lie. Sirius hated them but hate was not the opposite of love, indifference was. If he felt hate then he still felt something.

"It's just perfect though isn't it?" Sirius asked. Despite the tears that were still staining his face he was now smirking, an evil grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. "They hated muggles so much."

James had been shocked when his dad had told him the news. Orion and Walburga Black hit by a car in London. Walburga had died instantly and Orion an hour later in a muggle hospital. Neither of them had spoken to their oldest son in years.

The tears that had stopped started falling once more, slower this time, clinging to his dark eyelashes before dripping down his face.

"I don't care," Sirius stated once more.

James could hear that he was trying to convince himself with every word.

"It's okay if you do," James heard himself saying. He was shocked by his own words. When he was younger he had had a horrible habit of speaking before thinking. Somewhere around the age of fourteen or so he had stopped doing so; every once in a while though his old ways snuck up on him. He hated when they did.

James braced himself for his best mate to lash out at him. It rarely happened. James could recall twice. Both of those times had been when they had been discussing his birth parents. Both of those times James had implied that it was okay if Sirius missed them or cared about them or even loved them.

"It's not," Sirius mumbled through his tears.

James two front teeth chewed gently on his bottom lip as he weighed his options. After a moment he decided that he didn't care if he started a row with Sirius. Their arguments never lasted for more than a few hours anyway.

"It is," James insisted. "They are still your parents."

Sirius' soft tears turned to heavy sobbing once more, the sound of it hurting James' heart to hear.

"Siri," James practically whispered as he slid off the edge of the couch that he had been perched on. A moment later he was sitting next to his brother. His mind drifted back to the day that Sirius had come to live with them permanently. His parents had had to heal him and while they tended to his physical wounds James had comforted him in an attempt to heal his emotional wounds.

Since then, aside from the occasional hug, they had never really physically shown their love for one another. The need to do so was never there.

Today was so very different.

Without giving his actions a second thought, James reached out and cupped his hand around the back of Sirius' neck.

"It's okay to care about them," James tried once more. "It doesn't make you weak or stupid. It proves that you are a good person Siri."

"They never cared about me," Sirius said through his weeping. "They never cared Jamie. When I was little I tried so hard to make them love me…to make them proud of me. They never cared. She always told me how much she hated me – how much of a disappointment I was. And he…he…

"You are better than them," James replied the tears welling up in his own eyes. "It was their loss and it always will be."

It always amazed him that after years of friendship he still couldn't handle seeing or hearing Sirius cry. He would have thought that it would have gotten easier over time but if anything it had gotten harder to handle. It was such a rare occurrence. In so many situations where it would have been perfectly understandable to sob, Sirius remained composed. It was James that allowed his emotions to show much too easily. Sirius could always keep something of a stiff upper lip. When he did give into his emotions it always caught James off guard, more so when it wasn't due to physical pain. His best friend's tears made him feel as if he was in pain himself. James often wondered if that was what a soul mate was. Of course, he loved Lily, he loved her in the truest sense of the word, in many ways more than he loved himself. It was a different kind of love with Sirius though.

James had always believed that fate brought Sirius to his family. It had changed who they both were. Of course, James had a close friend in Remus as well as in Peter but neither of those friendships could come close to touching what he and Sirius shared.

James could never comprehend how anyone, let alone Sirius' own parents, could choose to disown him. James was sure that he was the best person that he had the privilege of knowing.

"Siri listen," James said as Sirius coughed out an exceptionally loud sob. "It is their loss," James repeated the words once more. "You never did anything wrong. How could anyone do anything to deserve that? And you're hurting because you miss them just means that you are a better person." He knew that he was repeating himself. A broken record, his father would say referring to a muggle device. When James was little he always smiled widely whenever his dad mentioned anything related to muggles. His doing so would often lead to James asking ten million questions about the item.

About a year ago Sirius had told him that he had asked his own father about a muggle item once. Orion Black had not only belittled his son for wanting to know what a telephone was; he had thrown him across the room so roughly that Sirius had slammed into his wardrobe, the heavy oak knocking the wind out of his small body.

James closed his eyes tightly forcing the memory out of his mind.

"If it wasn't for you," Sirius whispered through his tears, "You and your parents."

"Our parents Siri."

Sirius nodded though he did not verbally agree.

Silence reigned aside from Sirius' soft sobbing and sniffling.

"Your parents," Sirius finally said in a hoarse voice, before he corrected himself, "Our parents have given me a family that has been filled to the brim with love, support, caring, laughter…the way that it is supposed to be. I can never thank you enough for that Jamie."

"You don't have to thank –"

"You didn't have to help me," Sirius cut him off. He gently moved his body forcing James to release the soft grip on his neck. "That night all those years ago…you could have said no, you could have refused to hide me."

James shook his head. "No, I couldn't. You are worth more than that."

"To you," Sirius replied in a hurt voice. "Why to you and not to them?"

James pondered the question. The stories that Sirius had told him over the years about his childhood with his parents were terrible at best. He couldn't imagine being scared of his father or having an emotionally abusive mother. Worse, he couldn't imagine having parents that treated him like that but their other child like a prince.

"I don't know," James answered honestly.

"I'm stupid," Sirius decided in a soft voice.

"You aren't at all," James insisted. "Really Siri."

"I always thought that maybe one day they would contact me. Maybe they would apologize for how they were. Maybe they would beg for my forgiveness."

"Maybe they would have if they were given more time."

"No," Sirius' voice was angry now. "They wouldn't have. They didn't see anything wrong with how they were. They don't know how much they damaged me but even if they did they wouldn't care."

James wanted to tell Sirius that he wasn't damaged but he wouldn't do it. He wouldn't shape the truth into something that would make him feel better for comforting his friend. Sirius would see right through it.

Truthfully, he was damaged in ways. James had seen that before Sirius had even come to live with them. He had seen it in little things. How Sirius had never received mail from home, how when mail did come for him it was always in the form of a howler. After Sirius had moved in with them every fear that James had had for his best friend had been confirmed. He had seen it in how much of his persona at Hogwarts was a carefully thought out and brilliantly calculated act. Only James got to see the real Sirius Black; the one that tried exceptionally hard to please their parents. That gave up his cool persona the moment they entered the house and turned into the sometimes quiet, sometimes emotionally damaged kid that had managed to complete their family. James didn't believe for a moment that anyone could go through what Sirius had for the first half of his life and not come out a little damaged on the other side.

"You saved me," Sirius said the tears welling up in his eyes once more. "You and mum and dad. If it weren't for you I would be a mess. I might not even be alive at all."

"You saved us Siri," James replied the first tear trickling down his own face. "Don't you see that? They messed up but me…me and our parents benefited from it and we always will."

The tears rushed from Sirius' eyes once more as he leaned over allowing his body to fall into James' side. James brushed the tears from his own face before wrapping his arms around his brother. "It's gonna be okay," he whispered. "You have us. We aren't going anywhere."

TBC...