[For Close Friends] Dated 2 September

[not_the_grim]

The first hour was a total blur, one event melting into the next. He remembers the feeling of Buckbeak strong beneath them, the flash of blue water skimming below. The intense feeling of relief that couldn't be blown away, not even when Rob had hustled him into a white, sterile room and poked him in the arm

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[little_moons]

I don't even remember how I got here.

The time from when Shari came bursting into the Winchester, and right now, sitting hunched beside his bed with my heart lodged up in the back of my throat... It's a chunk of time that might as well have happened to a different person.

But I remember not believing it. I remember being convinced this was a dream, and it still feels hazy, disconnected, like any moment I might wake up and realize that he's still gone. That everything's still fucked.

But he's here, sleeping in the bed in front of me, so frail that he barely makes a lump under the sheets. I hardly recognize him, under the scraggly beard, the sallow, dirt-stained skin. But it's him, and I find myself unable to look away. Waiting for him to wake up, or maybe waiting for him to disappear all over again.

[not_the_grim]

Sirius wakes on a cough, a faint clearing of his throat that builds until he's pushed himself up on arms surprisingly strong for how whittled down they appear, dirty fingers clutched at the edge of the mattress and head bowed between sharpened shoulders. His entire body quakes with it, looks about to shake apart, but the episode passes quickly enough, and he lifts a hand to wipe the wayward saliva from his bottom lip.

Only then does he see bent knees and skinny legs perched on the edge of a chair beside the bed. Worn, familiar trainers are pressed to the polished concrete of the floor, and Sirius sucks in a shuddering breath but doesn't look up, isn't sure he can right away, the tightness in his chest now from something altogether different.

"Is this real?" he asks in a faint rasp, eyes wide and wrapped in tears as he stares at those feet.

[little_moons]

He wakes with a jolt, the worst fuckin' coughing I think I've ever heard rattling through his chest, and I sit forward in my seat, wanting to reach for him but half afraid he might shatter, if I do.

His eyes open, fall on my shoes resting on the floor, and my heart wrenches in my chest, so painfully that the air leaves my lungs with a choked sob of laughter.

"It fuckin' better be."

[not_the_grim]

The noise that pushes up from Sirius' chest doesn't sound real, a broken, choked sort of wail from some distant part of him that he doesn't even recognise. The moment he lifts his eyes to Neil's face, something in him snaps and he can't keep his hands to himself, fingers dirty as they splay desperately across tanned cheeks.

"Is this a dream?" he asks, gray eye wide and wild, afraid to believe. "Just say no, say no, please say no," he says in a rushed whisper that chokes off with a sob.

[little_moons]

"You're not dreamin'. You're awake, man. This isn't a dream," I promise him, turning to press my lips to his palm, my own hands reaching for his face, pushing back filthy hair and brushing my thumbs over the sharp rise of his cheekbones.

He looks awful, the smell of unwashed skin and dirt and shit and fuck knows what else clinging to him, his eyes wild and half crazed but it doesn't fucking matter. He's here, and that's the only thing I care about, right now.

[not_the_grim]

He already has his hands on Neil; it's easy to move grasping fingers to his slender shoulders and pull him in with a desperate jerk, to wrap skinny arms firm around his torso. Neil smells clean, like coffee and citrus and the faint, cloying scent of tobacco, and Sirius presses his face in against the junction of shoulder and neck with a relieved hiccup of sound. He knows he himself stinks, that he's covered head to toe in filth, but he needs to have his hands on Neil, needs to confirm that what he's said is true.

[little_moons]

It's with surprising strength that he yanks me forward, nearly pulled completely out of my chair and onto the bed with him. My arms go around him, and he's so painfully thin, feels so achingly fragile, that I'm suddenly terrified I'm gonna hurt him. But it's not enough to make me let him go.

"Thought I was never gonna fuckin' see you again," I whisper, my own breath coming in fitful stutters. I lost him once before, but we weren't close. Not really. He was a guy I knew. A dark, moody cloud of a person that I saw once every couple of weeks, who I maybe had a little bit of a crush on. Losing him then didn't even begin to prepare me for what it was like this time.

[not_the_grim]

Time very clearly divides itself into two halves for Sirius now: Before and After. Before, he would have had his brief emotional moment with Neil but then laughed at the two of them, have made some easy quip about Neil not being able to live without him. But in the After, Sirius just holds on and feels the flutter of Neil's pulse against his cheek awhile longer. He wants to apologise for leaving, but knows the moment his mouth frames the words, he'll be crying again, so he leaves it and hopes Neil understands.

Reluctantly, he pulls away and rubs dirty fingers across his damp cheeks. The emotion is still there, a hard little knot just inside his breastbone, but he thinks he can hold it back now, for a little while.

"I need a shower," he quietly admits, not a quip to dispel tension but rather a statement of fact with an unspoken request for help beneath. Rob would have him swabbed down in bed, but Sirius can't abide that; it feels like his pride is one of the only parts of him he has left.

[little_moons]

"Shave, too. Think Chase'll let you outta the fuckin' bed?" I ask with a crooked grin, my hands still on him, reluctant to let go.

"We could sneak into one of the suites. Use one of those tubs." Last I looked, nobody was even livin' in those, anymore.

[not_the_grim]

"I don't give a fuck," Sirius replies of Chase, which is perhaps not entirely fair to the blond but nonetheless true. A simple sponge bath is not going to cut it.

"I'll need some scissors," he says as he clamps off the IV drip and then pulls the needle free from his hand with a wince. "And a razor. And…" He pauses to take a few slow breaths. "Yeah, a bathtub would be good." Now that it comes to it, he isn't convinced he could stay upright for as long as he'd need to be in a shower.

[little_moons]

Leaning over to grab a tissue from the box by the bed, I reach out to press it against the blood welling up on his hand, all basically without thinking. I've dealt with bumps and scratches and scrapped knees with the girls enough, that kind of shit sort of comes natural.

"Just wait here a minute," I say, pushing to my feet, and I'm so fuckin' reluctant to leave him, I practically run the distance to the storage room to find a razor and scissors, soap and shampoo and a towel. On my way back into the clinic, I grab the wheelchair from the front room, where it's folded up in the corner, and wheel it back toward the room where they've put him.

Leaning against the handlebars, I flash him a crooked grin and say, "What do you think?" I'm half sure he'll put up a fuss, but it'll be easier than him making the walk.