(Untitled)

[seriousmarauder]

WHO: Sirius Black and OPEN
WHAT: Sirius is in prison for who knows how long.
WHERE: ...prison. :P
WHEN: throughout the week and beyond!
NOTES: If there's a friend of his who wants to visit him for whatever reason and they don't know he's there, we can handwave that he also sent them this message before he turned himself in, or that they found

Comments

Wednesday

[goldn_boy]

Jim was angry. He was hurt. But he wasn't heartless. Having moved the process along as fast as he could, Jim made it a point to make sure his orders were being carried out.

Sirius looked awful. Then again, Jim had lost some weight himself, and Sirius had every reason to look tired and haggard.

He walked down the hall, hating the echo of his footsteps, and stopped in front of Sirius' cell.

"Sirius," he said by way of greeting.

o/

[seriousmarauder]

Of all the people Sirius was expecting to see, Jim was not one of them. Not that he was expecting to see many people, but still. He glanced up, staring at him.

"...Jim?" He wondered if something else had gone wrong.

[goldn_boy]

Jim raised an eyebrow. "You seem surprised," he said. He looked tired himself, though he hadn't anything like Sirius' excuse. "I told you I'd make sure you were taken care of."

He glanced around the cell. It was... well, a cell. There wasn't much to be said for that, and Jim deplored the primitive conditions. But something was wrong, and he frowned.

"Did you finish dinner already?" he asked. "Shouldn't you be in the mess?"

[seriousmarauder]

"Wasn't expecting you," Sirius replied, shrugging.

When Jim asked about dinner, he glanced away. There was a half-eaten container of stew in the corner of his cell. "They don't feed me."

[goldn_boy]

Jim's blood froze at that, and he went dangerously still. And then his attention snapped to the side, and he was striding towards the nearest guard.

"You," he said, mantle of command firmly around his shoulders. "Do you have orders to starve this man? To starve any inmate? No. You don't. What's your name?"

"Jenkins." The man glared defensively, but he was afraid. And Jim wasn't about to let him get a word in of excuse.

"You're done here. As is anyone else stooping to cruelty. We don't tolerate that, not even in this godforsaken place."

At no point did he actually shout, or threaten. But he was angry. Turning back to Sirius, having dismissed the guard and put in a call, his eyes still flashed with it.

"I brought you something from home anyway," he said. "Figured the food wouldn't be good here, or plentiful." He pushed a container through the bars. "Sirius... I'm sorry. You should have gotten word to me."

[seriousmarauder]

Sirius just stared at him again, not touching the container.

"I don't...I can't. You should eat it." He noticed that Jim had lost weight, too. And he deserved it more. Anyone deserved it more than he did. He knew that.

[goldn_boy]

The only thing that kept Jim from rolling his eyes was the fact he was still angry. His temper was shorter, these days, but this would have angered him on a good day.

"I'm leaving it anyway," he said. "I have options. You don't. So your options are to eat it or let a guard, and before I leave I'm going to be damn sure they're on their best behavior."

[seriousmarauder]

Sirius took the container, his hands trembling a little. He managed a few bites, and had to set it down again. "Thank you," he murmured. "I don't blame them, though."

[goldn_boy]

Jim's eyes narrowed. "I have no doubt you're punishing yourself more than enough," he said. "And whatever's left over should be for the law to decide. You don't need some stranger's judgment on top of that. No one deserves to starve. No one. And I'm not going to let you."

[seriousmarauder]

Sirius sighed. "It's nothing that hasn't happened before. Starving or the entire world judging me for what I've done. You shouldn't feel like you've got to protect me from that. I'm not even sure why you do." He knew Jim was still angry at him, as he had every right to be.

[goldn_boy]

"So you're going to be a martyr, then?" Jim asked tightly. "Sirius, do I seem like the type of man who does things I don't want to do? If you like, you can reassure yourself that it has nothing to do with me and you. I don't believe in torture. I barely believe in prisons. It doesn't matter who you were, I'd still stand up for you. Maybe if you understood that there are people who truly believe that, you wouldn't be here. But it's true."

[seriousmarauder]

"It's not that I don't believe that, Jim. And I know you would. I'm just...not sure I deserve it. Not after what I've done." He didn't know how to explain that even if the guards were treating him normally, he wouldn't do it himself. He hadn't been since people started dying.

[goldn_boy]

"You don't deserve to live, you mean?" Jim's eyes narrowed. "Snap out of it, Sirius. Everyone makes mistakes. You fix them or take what's coming and you move on the best you can. And yes, I'm angry. But on what planet does this make any kind of sense?"

He stepped away, shaking his head, before rounding on the cell again.

"Do you understand why I'm angry? Do you know why I can't stop moving, why I can't eat? Why what happened has me this upset? It's because I've been here before. I was a kid, and there wasn't enough food, and people died. People murdered. I lived. I did what I could, saved who I could, but... And for you to stand there now and tell me you don't deserve to eat when I can't even sleep for worrying about those who can't..."

It was a slap in the face, but Jim had said more than he'd wanted already.

[seriousmarauder]

"I didn't know," Sirius whispered, wishing he could comfort Jim somehow, even though it wasn't his place anymore. "And I'm sorry. But imagine...imagine if the fact that there wasn't enough food was your fault. Imagine if all those deaths were your fault, and you couldn't fix it..."

[goldn_boy]

Jim didn't need comfort. What he needed was for Sirius to stop feeling sorry for himself.

"I don't have to," he said. "Don't you think I've failed to save people? Don't you think my actions have cost lives? That's what command is, Sirius. That responsibility. And it weighs on me every day. Feel as bad as you want, you have to go on. Or you negate the very thing that has you feeling that way in the first place."

[seriousmarauder]

"I'm trying. But we're not all used to coping with this sort of guilt, Jim. The only reason I didn't go mad in Azkaban was because being innocent wasn't a happy thought...because I thought it was still my fault. So they couldn't steal it from me," Sirius explained. There weren't any Dementors here, true, but he was still having a hard time separating the two situations.

"And this time it is my fault, and it's so much worse..." He trailed off, not really expecting Jim to understand.