Your forever is all that I need

AN: This is a non-magic Blackinnnon AU so don't expect any mentions of magic or Hogwarts. This story is one I'm very proud of, definitely my favourite one so far. I've also done illustrations for this story so I will be posting links for those soon. The inspiration for this story (and the title) came from "If I'm James Dean, You're Audrey Hepburn" by Sleeping With Sirens (an amazing band by the way and I'd recommend) more specifically the chorus and line "can't promise that things won't be broken but I swear that I'll never leave" which I think is the entire theme of this work so yeah give that a listen after if you want to understand this story better. I really do ramble a lot, anyway on with the story...

It's a cold night she thinks, it always is, but she honestly can't bring herself to care. She tucks her legs beside her on the ledge and just breathes, she didn't realise how suffocating everything was until she had space to just breathe. She watches the smoke rise lazily from the cigarette between her fingers, it's pretty, she thinks, in a curious way, it rises and dances with the wind but it's detested by most and she doesn't understand why. Her fingers are numb and she's shivering in her thin t-shirt but the stars are so comforting she can almost feel their warmth in her blood. It's cold, yes, but it's peaceful and if she can escape reality for just a little bit then that means more to her than being cold. She likes being alone, just her, the stars and endless possibilities. It's nice, it's unassuming and it distracts her from the reason she can't sleep. Solitude is her best friend, she's comfortable alone, she likes being alone but maybe she's afraid of being lonely too and that's the difference she thinks.

After a while a boy joins her quietly, black hair in his face, smoke being puffed out from his pink lips. And he's so beautiful, she just wants to know everything about him, his name, where he's from, anything because he's so completely different to anyone else she's ever seen. But she doesn't speak, and they just sit there, on the ledge, waiting, watching, not talking and definitely not sleeping.

It's a month before either of them speak, a cool October breeze in the air, the moonlight through the barren tree branches creating striking silhouettes on the ground and she speaks quietly, just barely over the whisper of the wind, "Are you alright?" A brief look of despair flickers on his face but he says nothing and just focuses on the mesmerising way the leaves dance in the breeze. She gets it, she really does and even though she wants him to speak more than anything, because she needs to know something, anything, about this mysterious boy, he doesn't want to talk and she understands that. She thinks he gets that too because the next time she sees him, he still doesn't talk but he squeezes her hand and really it feels quite nice.

"My sister died," is all she says a few weeks later, the 'that's the reason I don't sleep', the 'I can't get her scream out of my head', the 'I'm a little bit broken' stuck in her throat. He understands though, he doesn't cry or hug her or say he's sorry (or speak at all) until she feels smothered, he just sits next to her in companionable silence tracing patterns on the back of her hand and she smiles because he just understands.

He's already out there waiting for her the next night, a cigarette in his mouth and a sketchbook in his hand. She watches the stars in silence, the only noise being the faint scratching of his pencil as he draws. Time passes that way, in minutes? Maybe hours? Heck, she doesn't even know what month it is anymore, her days being measured by him sitting beside her on those nights, her time being counted by how many times her heart flutters when he's near and she doesn't even know when this started but she knows its not going to change it anytime soon. After 42 of those flutters, something falls into her lap, a piece of paper with three words written in elegant copperplate, I have no-one. She looks to her right but he's already gone and he stays gone for a while. She thinks it must have taken a lot for him to write that so she folds it and keeps it with her.

"You have me you know," she says when he's back after about six nights she thinks. They've barely spoken more than a few words, most, all of them, being from her, and they don't even know each other's names but she's felt more for him than she'd felt for anything in a while and if he can't trust anyone else, maybe he could trust her. And it's then that she realises, she trusts him, a stranger, completely, so maybe they're not strangers, not anymore.

It's about two weeks later when she receives another note, consisting of one word, his name, 'Sirius'. She can't help but grin at finally knowing this boy's name, 'Sirius, like the star' she thinks, and maybe it's the perfect name for him because he's shone so brightly in her life in the most unconventional and breathtaking way and maybe it's just perfect.

"Marlene," she whispers into the air and she's sure she sees a faint smile on his face before he ducks his head down focusing on his sketching. His smile may have been the most amazing thing she's ever seen and maybe it hurts because she used to think that of her sister's cheeky grin and she isn't replacing her is she because honestly she couldn't live with herself if she did. She still thinks he's wonderful, beautiful and a whole host of other adjectives that would never quite explain how great he really is and she wants to tell him this, so she does. She swears she sees him blush.

They just talk after that, well she does, she tells him everything, her thoughts, her feelings, she even mentions her sister once, briefly, but it's more than she's said to anybody else. He doesn't say anything, he never does, he just sits there listening intently to her ramblings while watching the smoke tendrils from his cigarette and sometimes she doesn't know if he feels anything but maybe, just maybe he brushes her hair from her face. Or maybe he looks into her eyes, broken blue meeting stormy grey and this is kind of perfect really.

He tells her everything a week later, and she knows how hard it is, she sees it in his eyes, in the way his face falls as he mentions his "family". She wants to tell him how much he means to her and how amazing he is but this is the most he's ever said to her and she just listens, she thinks she'll have plenty of time to tell him all of that later so he just holds hand and hopes it conveys her message. She thinks he gets it when she sees him smile at their entwined fingers.

He's bleeding the next time she sees him from a gash on his cheek, the crimson a deep contrast to the paleness of his skin. She doesn't ask, she never does, she just mops him up as well as she can and holds his hand and maybe she sings to him 'can't promise that things won't be broken but I swear that I'll never leave' and she decides that this describes their situation perfectly. And when he starts to cry, whether from the pain or the tenderness of her actions she doesn't know, she kisses his cheek and holds him close and when he smiles back at her she feels her breath hitch because it's so devastatingly beautiful and broken, and she can't look away, and maybe she's never felt this way in her life.

She speaks to him more and more and he starts to reply and she can't help but feel so inextricably drawn to this boy with his broken smile and interesting thoughts and oh God she just can't help but admire the kind of person he is. And they just holds hands on the ledge, smoke cigarettes and watch the starts and it's like something out of a book and she can't help but feeling overwhelmed by it all. And maybe she doesn't feel so lonely anymore.

But reality hits them hard in the face with the anniversary of her sister's death, it's been a year but she doesn't think she'll ever get over it. So she cries and cries until her voice is hoarse and her head is aching and she can't feel anything but grief and she can't hear anything but her sister's agonising scream as the life left her body. It's like her mind is suffocating her until she can't think straight, can't see through the smudge of her tears and she cries that night more than she's ever cried but he just holds her close and tells her stories about the stars until all she can hear is the soft beating in his chest.

She thinks she loves him, everything about him from love of drawing to his inability to tie his shoelaces, and she can't imagine being anywhere else but with him and maybe he's the reason she's still here. And that scares her because she's never loved someone in this all consuming way before, she feels so vulnerable and honestly it's terrifying but he's here, he's always here so she thinks she can do this as long as he's always beside her. It's when he laughs a week later, a laugh that barely lasts a split second before he covers his mouth and stops; she knows she loves him because all she can think about is making him laugh as much as she can so she can hear that sound for the rest of her life. And that's what she thinks love is all about unconditional devotion to the other person's happiness, maybe that's what she wants for the rest of her life.

"I think you're kind of beautiful," she tells him, it just slips out and she nervous and her palms are sweating because what if he thinks I'm being too forward, but he's smiling, oh god he's smiling and laughing and kissing her cheeks and she feels excited in a way she hasn't in a long time and feels amazing.

He was drawing her, in his sketchbook for weeks. She arrives at the ledge but in his place is a drawing. It's of a girl and she's beautiful in a broken way and she gasps when she realises it's her with her wavy hair and full lips and she can see the pain behind her eyes and its extraordinary that he can capture so many feelings in one drawing. And at the bottom of the page are the words 'I think you're kind of beautiful too," and if she cries the stars don't tell.

She tells him she loves him a month later, they're sitting on the grass under a big tree instead of the ledge, and the air is calm and the moonlight is illuminating his porcelain skin making him looking incandescent, the contrast of the inky black hair to his pale skin striking. And she's looking, just admiring him, the way his eyelashes cast shadows on his face, the small rise and fall of his chest as he breathes and it just slips out. She can feel her heart racing as his eyes blink open revealing the steely grey she loves and she opens her mouth to speak, to take it all back because someone as wonderful as him can't love her but is cut off when he whispers "I love you too." And she's all kinds of relieved, she's ecstatic and she's smiling and he's whispering "I love you's" into her skin, his lips tracing her arms, her neck, her face and oh god this is all kinds of amazing.

They still meet every night, she doesn't think she can handle it if they didn't and they holds hands and watch the stars and do everything they did before but it's different now because they're in love and his "you're amazing's" hold more weight and now she kisses him pouring every word she was too afraid to ever say into it, every you're gorgeous, you're just right for me, you're the only one I've ever wanted encompassed into a kiss, and maybe she thinks that's the best way to get the message across.

It's still just the two of them together and maybe they're still broken, and maybe she still cries and he still holds her and maybe they're still wondering and maybe they still can't sleep but they have each other and they know they'll never leave and it works for them. But maybe they were fixing each other all along, she's finally feeling, he's finally talking and maybe, she thinks, they were always meant to find each other.

AN: I really hope you liked it because I've worked hard on this piece and it's one of the best I've ever written. Also if you already haven't I would listen to the song, there are two versions by the band, the original which is kind of post hardcore/alt rock, or the acoustic which is extremely relaxing and beautiful so just listen to whichever version appeals to you after all it's all the same song just a different arrangement. Also this story is more focused on the relationship between Marlene and Sirius and how it changes/develops/blossoms, rather than physical descriptions of people and places, I kind of did it in this way so you, the reader, and imagine the setting in a way which make sense to you. I honestly hope you enjoyed this because it really is the best thing I've ever written.