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When the mansion crumbles, it leaves not a trace of its once former glory. No rubble nor debris nor dust to mark it was ever there, with only their existence on the ground to prove a contract fulfilled and a promise kept. Sirius stares at the empty lot of land where ochre pillars and a great wide roof used to be, sees the great expanse of green fields lying beyond, and feels the warm sun pull the shadows away from his face.
Perhaps many a lifetime ago he would have felt grief, but as it were-
(“You have changed,” Claire says, and to his mortification he can hear the smile in her voice even as he sputters and wipes silent tears away with his back towards them.)
A final gift, perhaps, from Lady Dorothy. Or perhaps it had been a selfish innate desire born within himself to break free of the whims of demons and responsibilities that had stifled his life. Perhaps both. Sirius finds the notion equal amounts exhilarating and painful. It had been a long time since he found himself at a crossroads where he could simply do anything, go anywhere, live… freely.
And how he wants to, even as he smiles and turns his back to follow Claire and Wilardo leave this chapter of an ordeal behind. After all, he wants to live so much till he has lots to tell Lady Dorothy when the day comes that they meet again; to spend his days realising his dreams and desires with his own power and achieve a happiness that no Witch’s Heart can grant.
It would be alright, Sirius thinks, if they never returned.
There is a whole lot of world to explore even with Wilardo to guide them, and Sirius finds he does very much mind many of the novel experiences spelling trouble that the three of them fall headwards into, courtesy of Claire. Well, more of Claire somehow dragging him into some shenanigan or other via persuasion (no, her puppy-dog eyes tactic was still horrible) through a sort of appeal to his hotheadedness, -one which he envies Wilardo seems to lack- or via an accident (yes, even after everything, her fearless curiosity remained as untouched as ever) which was seemingly never her fault. It was ridiculous every time, and yet Sirius had never once thought to leave her for his own separate way.
(“You two sure are good friends huh?” Wilardo had murmured once in that quiet, amused tone of his that Sirius would have surely missed if the boy-adult (sometimes Sirius thinks he seems so much older and more mature than the two of them are) was not squatted by his side as he laid sprawling and very much out of breath under Claire’s laughter and apologies.
“Not much longer if she doesn’t get off me!” Gritted teeth and fed-up exasperation cloud him as his shoulders heave.
“And I will! As soon as you stop moving.” Cotton candy blue hair tickles him. “Thanks for the save, Sirius! Though, why did you do that anyway? You are always complaining and saying I’m the stronger one-”
“S-shut up!”)
They stick together of course, the three of them. Because Wilardo had insisted he watch over them a little longer, and Claire… Well, when all was said and done, it was not as if she made bad company. Years living alone in the mansion had made him lonely, and while the eccentricities of his houseguests were something to behold at first, apart from the betraying and lies and attempts at murder-, it had almost been a sort of tolerable in those early hours of noise and clatter of footsteps that meant sudden companionship.
Claire’s presence and annoying, cloying chumminess had even seemed so much like old deja vu at times, especially with her constant positivity and peppy chatter that broke the silence of his concentration. And then Noel had joined them, and it had been almost enough to fall back into old rapports and habits during their brief reunion. Comforting even, but Sirius was going to deny that until the day he dies.
Even brushing all that aside, Claire was still his childhood friend and Lady Dorothy’s granddaughter. So, so that would make her his charge now! No matter how troublesome or loud and chatty she got, she was his only living connection to the mansion and blood relative of the person who saved his life. Besides, if he left, he just knows her clumsiness and penchant for trusting every stranger she meets would lead her into more trouble, to the point where even Wilardo would get swept up in her schemes.
(“...Pfft. You have an odd way of showing you care, Sirius.” Claire blinks at him, amused and lips curving. “I’m glad though! I would be sad if you left. I like travelling with you and Wilardo.”
“Really.” The man glances back as he stands by the fork in the road, the red pendant he wears clinking to rest low over his chest. He pauses, as though taking a breath, and continues amid Claire’s heartfelt jabbing and Sirius’s rapidly forming grimace. “Though I think I sort of understand.”
They almost don’t hear him, not when the redness on Sirius’s cheeks erupts past blazing and he makes to chew Claire off, but Sirius notices, lets loose a short huff as he shares a look with his childhood friend when their third party unconsciously reaffirms his place among their group, a temporary decision from a sixth morning long ago becoming something more permanent.
They end up squabbling anyway, Wilardo watching them with an accustomed look resembling fondness.)
Wanderlust can only appease them so much, and soon enough they settle down in a house a little by the wayside of some nearby town where they had once left. By the woods and surrounded by flowers, after both men had noticed Claire’s wistfulness following recounts of her childhood with her adoptive grandparents. In this roomy, plain space they carve out a place of their own, fix drafts and replace the emptiness with keepsakes to make a home. Claire builds them a shed, Wilardo grows a garden, Sirius helps where he can, and considers enmassing a collection of books again.
Time flows, turns the weather hot and cold and reveals a year's worth of wildflowers over the land. The days pass, peacefully or otherwise, for as Sirius would come to find, there would never be a dull moment in their house for long, not with Claire and her propensity for antics and adventure. Not a dull moment outside either when they had to leave for short trips, what with Wilardo’s need to find fresh flowers to preserve while waiting for their garden to bloom and Claire’s need to run about. Some things, he thinks in resigned annoyance, have not changed. (Sometimes she would relay her days spent helping townsfolk and their heavy lifting as she raced ahead to help a struggling traveller with their packs, and Sirius would shiver in horrified awe at how her lean arms seemed to pack so much muscular strength.) It brought him no end of verbal squabbling and stress, even as he tried to ignore the trickling awareness of a pulse that ebbed and flowed within him.
These strange feelings that itch whenever Claire would beam and fix her bright eyes on him for too long he would rather swallow and pretend not exist. Nothing would be worse if she found out and teased him for it. Really, she would lord it over him if she could until he lost his patience and attempted- well, attempt something that would lead to an impromptu chase and verbal complaints that would send half their house into disarray and Wilardo giving them a long-suffering look so disappointed it made him feel ashamed.
Unless these symptoms were a form of illness.
Sirius did not think he was sick. But just to be sure, a few weeks later saw him brave a visit to the town’s clinic, loathed as he did to be under the eyes of too many strangers. Discreetly of course; he did not want his roommates-slash-companions raising any eyebrows. Sure enough, his misgivings were for naught. But still the itch persists, and it brought him more befuddlement even as their lively days continue.
The soft locks of Claire’s blue hair catch his eyes one day when she returns waving her spoils from her morning to the market with sparkling eyes, interrupting his conversation with Wilardo in the garden. Strangely the sight makes him pause and notice, noting the way her hair droops down her shoulders, tips reaching past her shoulder blades and held by dark blue ribbon. Claire laughs as she brandishes a book at them, the glossy edges of a weathered Witch’s Heart cover shining under the sunlight. By author Kelvin Martinez. Ah, her favourite rendition. Her hair bounces along with her every movement as she boasts cheerfully about a sale and coin, but he could scarcely make sense of it with the sudden daze that enveloped his head.
Why had he not noticed until now, that Claire was growing her hair out.
If she kept this up, it would end up not unlike the length she used to keep when they were children, though the way she did her hair now looked marginally different, and the way the locks framed her face was-
Sirius chokes on a gasp, feels something itchy crawl down his spine in shivers.
“You..!"
Even more startling was the realisation that Claire looked different, in a way he could dare say was almost nice to look at, maturely of course, because she was a growing-grown woman. What else could it be otherwise? The strange notion he could not quite fathom was back, and he feels surprisingly tongue-tied in a manner he could barely comprehend, even as he points one finger at Claire accusingly.
“Claire! You..!”
“Y-Yes!?” She stiffens in salute, only to break her stance almost immediately. “Me?”
She looked more like Lady Dorothy by the day. But that wasn’t just it. If it was just looks, Claire would need more than a thousand years to even hope of matching Lady Dorothy’s brilliance. Not to mention her being the total opposite in personality either, clumsy and chummy and boorish and a muscle gorilla in human skin and too loud-
“Sirius?” Her voice rings by his ears, snapping him out of his supposed trance and back into a pounding headache. Sirius grimaces, heedless of the glance his friends share. “Siiiirius?”
“What!?” The more he stares, the more he sees the vast differences. Claire’s locks are tousled and unruly and frizzy, tangled by wind and exertion, not nearly as silky and neat as Lady Dorothy's. The opposite of her grandmother in every way. Yes, she was not, and could never hope to be. Yes, he knows that, does not mind the least, acknowledged long ago that Claire possessed her own stubborn shine that was the accumulation of her own ideals and power, and that it had been the divisive chip that placed them over the demons for a winning moment. It should not have meant more nor have anything to do with the swoop of his stomach. Claire was his annoyingly friendly and brash childhood friend that he reconnected with, that was all it was, all it should have been. And yet -
Sirius reels, realising with dawning horror that he finds Claire Elford to be… pretty.
“Uh, you were pointing at me? What's wrong? You have been really out of it lately.”
“She's right.” Wilardo affirms completely unprompted by his perch near the roses, sounding nonchalant as he pats the dirt down.
Sirius only narrows his eyes as the latter tilts his head up, ignores the twitch of his own eye as Wilardo’s lips quirk in vague consideration. There was an unreadable look in his eyes, and not for the first time Sirius wishes his roommate was less perceptive. His sight is quickly obstructed by a headful of blue, and with frantic motions he stumbles back as Claire leans into his space.
“S-Stop that!”
“Not until you tell us what’s the matter with you! Cause if you don’t,” Claire looks at him with a determined huff that leaves his skin tingling, “I’ll, I’ll headbutt you in the face. And, and there won’t be any hamburg steak for a week!”
“Stupid, you know we take turns doing dinner duty.” Sirius sniffs, relenting when her palm presses against and attempts to tap down his still-pointing finger. “If I want, I can just cook steak for myself.”
“Yeah, but we all know my hamburg steak tastes the best.”
Sirius snorts before he can stop himself, finding no words of retaliation waiting to spring back. His eyes find their way back to the cover of the Witch’s Heart storybook in Claire’s hands, feels a lump rise to his throat that was at odds with the itch of his pulse.
“Nothing’s bothering me. Nothing at all.” He averts his eyes, refusing to look into the shiny blues of hers.
Claire does not say a word, but she stares at him with such a doubtful look he can feel his own mortification start to rise. She never was any good at concealing her emotions, sometimes even going as far as to hide her feelings with exaggerated fervour, which led, half the time, to far too comical gestures. For instance, the pinch of her brows now. What a dubiously suspicious face she was making. The usual ordinary sight was enough to make him relax a little.
“It’s not good to keep your problems inside, Sirius.” Movement shuffles into view, and the both of them turn to see Wilardo walking their way and removing his garden gloves. “...I do want to eat Claire’s hamburg steak tomorrow. So at least settle some things out.”
Claire’s subsequent cry of “Thank you for liking my steak so much, Wilardo!” are immediately drowned by Sirius’s protests.
“Hey! Is this not also your problem?”
“You pointed at Claire first. So you are the one with the problem with her.” Wilardo says, looking almost smug before graciously excusing himself to the shed.
“No worries Wilardo, I will do my best! And if Sirius refuses to cooperate, I promise to still cook for you!”
“Ugh.”
Sirius closes his eyes as he rubs his temples, squints them open when he hears the shuffling of shoes on the grass in front of him. Claire smiles at him tentatively, a nervous flicker in her eyes. Stray strands of blue fall into her face; he watches as she absentmindedly brushes them back over her shoulders.
“Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong?”
“No.” He sighs, tries not to deepen his frown as he struggles to meet her eyes. “I’m not angry at you. Specifically.”
“Oh, that’s good.” He can feel her brighten as her smile turns softer. “So?”
Claire stares at him expectantly as though she held all the patience in the world, even though logically he knows it won’t take long for her to get restless, especially if he decides to stall. At which point her tendency to distraction and stubbornness would clash and end with her making a fool of herself. He knows she knows this, yet it is a pattern she keeps relapsing into. A stray thought makes him ponder if she does that intentionally, if only for the company. Somehow, that possibility was endearing.
“It’s not a big deal, I was just reminded. Your hair…” Sirius pointedly moves his gaze away when her attention shifts between those aforementioned blue locks and his face. “Its, its getting- I just noticed you are keeping it long, I guess.”
“Oh yes.” The slightest tinge of pink blooms on her face, much to his utter surprise. Claire laughs, looking almost embarrassed as she runs a hand through her hair, tucking some locks behind one ear and fiddling with her ribbon. She holds the book up to him again, lets him glimpse the figure of a long-haired woman on the cover. “I thought a lot about it and wanted a change.”
She tells him then, the reason for wanting to grow her hair out, her desire to match the witch and protagonist of her favourite Witch’s Heart storybook. It was an innocuous way of thought, but such a Claire thing to do that he is rendered speechless.
“If taking good care of it gets too troublesome, I can always cut it off. Although… I hope it doesn’t come to that aheh...”
Sirius doesn’t get it. Truly, after everything, he would think she wouldn't want anything to do with witches or demons or strange non-consensual contracts anymore.
“Don’t be silly.” She says when he tells her as such. “Granny was a witch, and she's one of the kindest people I know.”
There was a wistful look in her eyes, and Sirius feels a pang at the thought of the woman who had saved his life. Idly he wonders if he is living the kind of life that would make Lady Dorothy proud.
“...I remember you pestering Lady Dorothy to read you this book all the time before falling asleep, but I still don’t understand after all these years. Doesn’t that book have a tragic ending? And you want to mimic the protagonist?”
“It's not tragic!” Claire blurts out, forceful enough to take them both by surprise. “Even if they can't be together anymore, in the end the man and the witch both part on happy terms, so it is impossible for this to be a tale that ends sadly.”
“Claire.”
“The witch was an amazing person! No matter the struggles she faced, she always managed to make the best of her situation and look on the bright side of things. Even with the difficult decisions she needed to make, she tried to choose the path that ensured the happiness of as many people as possible. I really admire her way of living.” Blue eyes flicker, reflecting the pinpricks of stars. “I know it’s silly but… but I thought if I could feel a little closer to her, maybe I could have the courage to live the life I want even fuller, even if terrible, irreversible things happen… Does that make sense?”
Sirius swallows, feeling the lump in his throat tighten at the raw earnestness she presented to him. The itch within him was more of a nagging urge than tolerable sensation now. He should have known. For a person claiming to be Claire’s friend, he could be ignorant about the things that made her worry the most. The matters she felt so strongly about, how different was it really, to his feelings of insecurity that haunt him on restless nights? It was strange, how he admired and empathised and envied her, for being able to convey such sincerity without fear of others spitting it back.
He sees the stars in her eyes and the swish of her cotton candy blue hair and thinks why had he not noticed until now.
For some reason, his pulse was racing.
“Even so, are you truly alright with something so bittersweet?”
“You are acting weird again, Sirius.” Claire laughs and sighs. Her eyes sparkle with fondness, makes his breath catch inexplicably.
She must have heard him because they dart up, starlight locking with his crimson reds as they share eye contact. Something else must have occurred, because Sirius finds himself close to overwhelmed, ears growing warm even as he becomes increasingly confused when Claire suddenly startles back, flushing redder and cradling the book tight to her chest.
“I mean! A romance like what the witch had sounds wonderful, but it's not as if I want that to happen to me. Hahaha…” Another bout of nervous laughter as Claire scratches her cheek in a gesture he reads as casual dismissal.
“...Liar.” It was a quiet murmur, born from knee-jerk irritation at the sight of self-deprecation. It was something she was not meant to hear. She picks up on it anyway.
“Huh?”
Something snaps within him then, anger and confusion and overwhelming embarrassment for feelings he cannot comprehend forcing his mouth open in a flurry.
“Nothing! S-something like that doesn't suit you! You, you gorilla woman!”
“Huh!?”
“You heard me! There’s nothing to feel self-pity about!”
“No, the other part! I know I can carry you while running without breaking a sweat, but what do you even mean by gorilla woman!?”
“What do you mean ‘what I meant’ you just gave me a prime example!”
They had started yelling before they knew it, bewilderment coating each confused insult or query sent the other way. A small nagging part of Sirius thinks he should put a stop to their ultimately futile charade, but he was so disoriented he had no idea where to begin.
“I can't believe you. All these years and you are still so mean, Sirius!” Somewhere between their tenth and fifteenth round of back-and-forth Claire throws her arms out in exasperation, glares at him with a dazed look bordering on offence and affection. She does not give him the chance to refute, immediately stumbling towards the direction of their home, doubling down into a dash when the creak of the shed door nearby slides open.
“Wilardo!” He hears her whine with no bite as the man gingerly peeks his head out in the distance. “Sirius is being mean to me again!”
He would have gone with to protest his claim because it was unfair that Wilardo always tended to side with Claire rather than him, raced her back to their house to engage in another verbal dance of tongues with their friend in a way that was familiar and safe, but he could hardly move even if he wanted to, rooted in shock and a dawning realisation he almost didn’t want to acknowledge. Even from this distance he can see the frantic fluttering of her hair, the swaying of her ribbon as it entangles in the breeze.
There was an aching in his chest, a feeling he could almost call yearning.
“That's impossible, incorrigible! I couldn’t possibly-”
Sirius puts a hand to his flushed face, feels mortification rise with his racing heartbeat.
Claire, he thinks dazedly, will never let him live this down.
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