A/N: For the wonderful Ami (AlwaysPadfoot) for the Gift Giving Extravaganza. I hope you like it, love!

And thanks to Liza for looking over this for me!

I still want to drown whenever you leave.

Please teach me gently how to breathe.

The XX, Shelter

I have never understood you. I doubt I ever could.

Ever since you were ten years old, every move you have made has been a calculated stab at the heart of a desperate old woman, a knife swing at our mother's chest in the form of rebellion, and how could I ever be anything more than that?

You wore Gryffindor gold and I yet I slipped Slytherin silver around my neck and wore it like a medal, like I had won.

The good son, they called me. The good Black.

A part of me wondered if you were proud.

The summer after you came home from your second year, I crawled into your bed, like I used to when we were children, and asked you why you hated our parents. You said you had to, said I would never understand. Said sometimes people are wrong and I would learn that some day.

I slipped my arms around your chest, could feel your ribs as they rocked to your heartbeat. We both ignored the Slytherin that lingered on my skin, the Gryffindor that burnt in your veins. I followed the bright blue ribbons of your wrists with my eyes, creeping up your arms and fading as they went. I wondered if I'd bleed green.

The next morning, I woke up to the scent of you on your cold pillow and an empty bed, promising myself that I would let go.

You never wanted to be fixed.

When you were fifteen I found you in the library with Lupin, sat and watched as you lost yourself in the softness of his skin, held my breath as you pulled the robes from his shoulders and bit your claim onto his skin. I watched you trace his scars ever so gently and imagined what you'd think of mine.

Whatever would you think of the snake-tongued skull etched onto my forearm?

I left before his hands roamed under your robes, before I heard you mumble his name lazily into the hollow of his throat; there are parts of you I've always been to afraid to see, no matter how much I wanted to.

In the summer between your sixth year and your seventh, you crawled into my bed.

I didn't ask why and you didn't tell me, but your hands were cold on my skin and the sweet taste of regret on your tongue made my spine tingle. You bruised my body with tense fingers, insistent thrusts, left marks on my skin in the shape of handprints and disgust, and I tore at your back and tried to peel away the darkest parts of you.

I couldn't find the light.

I never wanted any of this, you know.

Never wanted you like this, never wanted you to want me. But I do and you did and now you've gone and left and I should have known. Should've known I was nothing more than another act of rebellion.

Your room still smells like you.

"I'm scared," I whispered, so low I didn't know if you would hear it, but I knew you'd still feel it on your skin.

"Don't be," you said, because you were just as scared and what else are you supposed to say to that?

So instead you kissed me, soft, desperate kisses, and I felt the fear drain from my chest. You were always so good at making me feel safe.

What happened to us, Sirius?

The night before you left I ran my knuckles across each knot of your spine, touched your cheekbones with the pads of my thumbs. I imagined how it would feel to have your bones crunch beneath my fist, or your limbs twist painfully in the light from the end of my wand. I wondered how it would feel to drag the scream from your throat the way you dragged the heart from my chest, wondered if your mouth would creak open like the gate of my ribcage; disused and rusted.

But you never did know how to keep quiet, did you, Sirius?

When your lips were on mine, skin on skin and hands on hips and mingling breath, you made me wonder where the shadows between right and wrong fell. I don't know which side the sun is coming from anymore.

I don't know what is real.

"I love you."

"I know."

"Don't go."

"I have to, Reg. You know I do."

"Just because you can't stay doesn't mean you have to go."

"What else can I do?"

"We can run away. Together."

You laughed, you bastard. You laughed.

Back at Hogwarts, I saw you wrapped up in that Lupin boy again. You looked tired.

I tried to work out whether you'd snuck into his bed the night before, or whether he'd snuck into yours.

You didn't see me looking. You never did.

I wonder if I can get the locket – get it and survive, get it and get out and get away – if you will look at me again. If you will start to trust me, to love me the way you should (but the way you shouldn't, not ever).

A part of me longs for you. The other part longs for freedom from you, this, everything.

I've been wondering more and more if freedom is supposed to look like death.

I've made it four days, holed up in an old cabin in the woods with the locket heavy around my neck, and you are the only thing I can think of. You are the only regret I have, the only real hatred I have ever felt, the only real love. You are my life, the ups and the downs, the darkness and the light; you are my everything. And I fucking hate you for it.

See, I've thought it over, tried to work out what it could mean. Here's a way to make mother mad; here's a way to make her scream: love me, touch me, fuck me, yes – we're nothing but a tragedy. She can't love us any less.

I never was anything more than your rebellion, was I?

And when they come for me – Nott, cruel smile and dark eyes, Goyle, broad and bold and fearless – I do not flinch or hide or cry. I stand there, and I say nothing, and I think of you, of your laughter and your joy and your passion and your lips on mine and I know that's it's okay, that I left my fear in your mouth again.

And when they say it – avada kedavra avada kedavra AVADA KEDAVRA – it sounds an awful lot like goodbye, and the pity in their eyes looks an awful lot like yours.