Work Text:
Like Patchwork
If anyone else had walked into the train compartment and taken a perfunctory look, they likely would’ve assumed that Sirius Black was sleeping. He was face down on the grimy bench, lips slightly parted, yielding to shallow but loud breaths, his hair splayed wildly across his back, clothed in layers of undershirts and robes despite the early September heat.
But James Potter was not anyone else, and he understood that Sirius was not asleep. Sirius was in pain.
Sirius could hear James’ feet approach quickly, the scrape of his trunk following him as it dragged across the floor. Sirius melted further into the bench supporting him, something akin to relief oozing from his fingertips. James was here. James was finally here.
“Sirius?” James’ voice was gentle, but his tone was urgent.
“‘M okay,” Sirius garbled out on his next exhale.
“Can you sit up?” Sirius recognized the question for what it was. Have they done something irreversible this time?
Sirius groaned and breathed roughly through his nose, pushing the pain deep, deep down as he used his shaky arms to push himself higher and higher up. James lunged forward to help him get vertical.
Sirius felt groggy, like a million little fish were swimming around his head in a pool of water that was slowly leaking out of his brain.
“Back,” he mumbled.
“You need to lie back down?”
Sirius made a sharp noise of frustration, partially from the misunderstanding and partially from the slicing pain stabbing at his nerves.
“He means his back is hurt,” came Remus’ voice. It sounded very far, even though Remus was just a few paces away, standing in the doorway of the train compartment, meeting Sirius’ eyes with such an intense level of distress that Sirius had to close his lids.
Still, Sirius wanted him closer, and he reached a heavy arm out to grab at the air in Remus’ direction.
Remus came to him at once, dropping his own trunk in the entryway. He knelt down next to James and smoothed some stray pieces of Sirius’ hair out of his face. Grabbing a black hair tie off his own wrist, he gathered the rest of the hair into a loose ponytail at the nape of Sirius’ neck and secured it together with the tie, dropping a kiss on Sirius’ temple as he did so.
“Can I take your robes off? Need to have a look at your back, love.” Remus’ voice was so quiet, so delicate. Sirius nodded his head ever so slightly, trying not to slosh the bouncing water inside it too much.
Remus began unbuttoning and maneuvering, working the thick fabric of the robes until it was off his arms, over his shoulders, past his head, and then lying in a heap on the floor, revealing a tailored white button down underneath. Remus began unbuttoning that too, but pulled back, horrified, at the aborted scream Sirius let out when Remus went to pull it down from his back.
“Did I hurt you?” His eyes were wide, scanning Sirius’ exposed skin. “You’re bleeding. I can smell it.”
“Back,” Sirius repeated through the slush in his mind.
“James, help me lay him back down.”
James, who had been rummaging around for the little glass vials in his trunk, stopped abruptly at the command, coming immediately to Sirius’ side.
“Gotta lay you back down, love,” Remus repeated, more gently, to Sirius. “Gotta take a look at your back.”
Sirius whimpered as they moved him, feeling goldfish drip out of his ear and fireballs race down his spine.
Then someone gasped and the previously forgotten train compartment door was yanked shut and fingers were feeling the long gashes across his back – the open, leaching wounds like molten lava across his fragile nerves – and Sirius knew that Remus was trying to be gentle, was always trying to be gentle, but it hurt anyway. He shoved his nose into the bench beneath him and squeezed his eyes so tightly that he saw fuzzy white dots.
“The dried blood is making your shirt stick to your skin,” Remus explained. He always managed to stay so calm somehow. Pete had nearly passed out the first time they had done this, and James usually got so worried, then so angry, then so worried again that it was dizzying just watching his features change so fast, but Remus was always soft and calm and looking at Sirius like the only thing worth doing in life was tending to his wounds. Looking at Sirius like he could be fixed, physically at least, and Remus wanted nothing more than to be the one fixing him.
“I’m just gonna go get some water from the bathroom, okay?”
“M’kay,” Sirius answered, his mouth still shoved against the bench fabric.
Remus’ footsteps retreated. James’ hand pushed something into Sirius’ limp one.
“Here, Pads, drink this.” Sirius could hear the rage in his best friend’s voice and had to remind himself that it wasn’t intended for him.
He lifted the clear vial to his lips, swallowing a wave of nausea when he turned his head to the side, and gulped down the pain potion, eternally grateful that Fleamont Potter was a potioneer who kept his office unlocked.
“Is one enough?”
“Think so.”
James pushed another vial into his hand.
“That means no.” Then, when Sirius hesitated, not wanting to be more delirious than he already was, “Come on, drink up. You’re not supposed to be in pain.” The words were softer now, but Sirius could still feel the anger buzzing off of James.
It was silent for a minute before James couldn’t help himself anymore.
“What did they use?”
“Don’t know.”
“ Sirius .”
Sirius sighed. There was no way this could end well.
“Fire poker.”
“What?!” James yelped. “A fucking fire poker? They beat you with a –” A weird, high-pitched noise came out of James’ throat.
Back to worrying again then , Sirius thought.
He’d honestly been surprised at first when his father had pulled out the long stick in front of the fireplace in his office. It had been even more shocking to hear him mutter that muggles had gotten one thing right. And then it had just been painful and fiery and scorching and so, so horrible. It had stunk like sour metal, the way blood always did. Sirius had begged for it to end. His father had been silent.
“I’m telling McGonagall. Hell, I'm telling the whole Wizengamot!” James threw his hands up in the air, then brought one back down to point it accusingly at Sirius. “No Christmas for you! You’re going home with me this year!”
“James –”
“You’re not going back there! I mean it, Pads. They hit you with a fucking fire poker.”
“James,” Sirius whispered. “Please.” If his voice cracked on the second word, that wasn’t his fault.
A moment of silence while James got his anger under control. “Fine. But we’re talking about this later. They cannot just do that to you and get away with it. They hurt you.”
Sirius didn’t have the energy to say anything back.
Luckily, Remus returned at that moment, a plastic bag filled with water cradled in his hands.
“Sorry,” he mumbled once he got close enough to Sirius. “It’s all I could find in my trunk.”
“‘S fine.”
“Ready?”
“Mhm.” Even as he said it, Sirius wasn’t sure if it was true.
Remus poured the water over Sirius’ back, the warm trickle surprisingly soothing over his inflamed skin. Then fingers were smoothing the water into the material against the gashes, working the crusty edges free from the fabric until it could be removed by steady, careful hands.
With the wounds exposed, Remus dug the disinfectant and gauze out of his suitcase and began his patchwork.
Sirius hissed as Remus started layering the disinfectant cream over the lacerations, feeling the sting intensify as it hit the broken skin.
“Sorry,” Remus breathed, with a quick kiss to the nape of his neck.
“Hurts,” Sirius punched out. He saw James’ fists clench at his sides. Remus leaned over Sirius’ back, being careful not to agitate the wounds any further, but offering all his warmth and comfort to the boy underneath him. Sirius was immensely grateful for his Moony in that moment.
James rifled around in his trunk once more before pulling something out and laying it across the bench on the other side.
“I’ll go wash this out,” James said, waving Sirius’ bloody shirt in the air with more force than was really necessary. “Try to get the bl –” he faltered, his jaw clenching. “Try to get the stains out.”
“Thanks,” Sirius murmured.
James turned to Remus, who was now wrapping the gauze around Sirius’ shoulder blades. “I left one of my shirts out, so you can put that on him when you’re done. I’ll let Pete know it’s almost over.”
With that, James left Sirius and Remus alone.
This whole scene was familiar. It had started when Sirius had boarded the Hogwarts Express for year three, his right ribs aching from where his mother’s curse had flung him into a bookshelf, scraping his skin and bruising his bones.
Apparently Moony could smell blood. And pain pheromones.
Now it was simply routine: James brought pain potions from his Dad’s collection, Remus brought muggle disinfectant and gauze, and Pete waited a solid fifteen minutes before joining their train compartment. The boy had always been quite squeamish at the sight of blood, something Remus, as a werewolf, and Sirius, as the heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, did not have the privilege to be.
The one thing that Sirius could never get used to was the way that Remus looked at him afterwards, like Remus himself was the one in pain, his lovely face shifted into a visceral anguish. The way that Remus was looking at him now, as he helped Sirius sit back up and gingerly lowered James’ soft grey shirt over his head.
“Moony…” Sirius breathed out, water slopping up against his cranium.
“Feel any better, love?”
It was still hazy in his head, minnows milling about his skull, but Sirius nodded anyway. Remus was here now. Of course he felt better.
“Here.” Remus’ outstretched hand offered him a bar of chocolate. Muggle chocolate. Cadbury Dairy Milk – his favorite kind. The kind that Remus always said didn’t have enough chocolate in it because he was a chocolate snob and rarely ate anything with less than 70% cocoa, with the glaring exception of the chocolate frogs Sirius liked to shower him with whenever they went to Hogsmeade. The kind that Remus only bought because Sirius said that dark chocolate was too bitter for his immense sweet tooth. The kind that Remus only bought for Sirius.
Sirius nibbled on the chocolate halfheartedly, watching through heavy eyes as Remus sat down next to him. He let himself be pulled into the other boy’s chest, his head leaning onto Remus’ shoulder as the last of the water started to drain out through his slightly parted mouth.
“You are good,” Remus whispered to him, even though no one else was around. Sirius turned his face to hide it in the crook of Remus’ neck.
“You are worthy of love.” Sirius pressed his lips onto Remus’ shoulder, trying to speak without words. Thank you , he screamed into his skin. Thank you, Moony.
“You are gonna be okay.” And here, in this moment, with Remus’ warmth surrounding him, his soothing voice encompassing him, the sweet, familiar taste of his favorite chocolate still on his tongue, and the pain potions finally beginning to kick in, ushering in a light, floaty bliss, Sirius believed him.