good things fall apart • sirius black

You've been so brave

    "I'll start with my jeans." He said, and after his jeans he did his socks, and after his socks they were back at his t-shirt.

    "I'll turn around and you tell me when you're ready, Padfoot." Ellie kissed both his cheeks hoping it would boost his confidence even more, "If you don't want to though, we don't have to go any further."

    "I want to." Sirius nodded, "I really want to."

So Ellie turned her back on him with a gentle smile, giving him as much time and as much space as he needed. She could hear him heaving deep breaths, the haphazard rhythm of his heart, and it had her smile growing even wider. The pride she felt for him was overwhelming; he was the bravest person she knew.

    "Cubby..." He called eventually, voice shaking.

Her smile dropped as soon as she turned around. Ellie had thought she'd known; she'd not even known a fraction of it.

He was stood with his back to her, but the skin wasn't smooth like the porcelain of his cheeks, nor the creamy ivory of his arms and neck. It was a patchwork of pinks and reds, purples and maroons. Not the soft flush someone might turn in embarrassment, but the deep colour of anger - dark and staining. Spiderwebs of thin lines and train-tracks of thicker ones; whole patches of skin mangled and discoloured. Scars mapping his time spent in Grimmauld Place. Scars outlining a lifetime of mistreatment. Scars displaying just how brave she knew he was.

Years of knowing the handsome boy, and not once had he told her, not once did she ever get to know how bad what he'd gone through really was. He'd spoken about it, she'd understood, but he'd never given a full picture.

Perhaps it was a little absentminded on her part, thinking all his scars would be permanent burns on his brain and not physical representations like Remus' were... Like hers were. In fact, there was a very familiar scar on his right side, curling around to mar his stomach too, that she shouldn't have been shocked by. It was the one from that very first time he'd ever stumbled out of the Potter's fireplace really injured, back in second year, and even now it was just as prominent as the rest. Her fingers reached out for the white line that ridged his skin as her other hand came to her own worst scar along her cheek.

Dark magic. That's what dark magic did.

Ellie' stomach churned knowing he'd had so many years having to tolerate such pain, so many years without Euphemia to patch up his wounds. And the worst part was that you could tell. The deepest scars indented his skin as if someone had carved out chunks of his back, and all she could see were pictures in her mind of him lying flat on his stomach in his bed at Grimmauld Place, night after night, just waiting for these wounds to heal for the very first time - she dreaded to think how long it took, how many times they re-opened for him to have to be patient all over again. Ellie understood his frustration with waiting differently now.

The biggest of the scars ran from his right shoulder blade down to his left side, a deep maroon, and Ellie knew even the darkest of magic didn't scar like that. Others were like it and she desperately wanted to ask what they had used to do to him, only she knew he wouldn't tell her, not this. The very darkest corners of his mind would never been seen by anyone but himself.

    "I told you..." Sirius' voice interrupted her studying his skin, "That's not something anyone should see."

There was so much shame in his tone, disgust at himself, and when he went to turn around, Ellie stopped him by wrapping her arms around his torso before he could. She nestled her cheek into the back of his neck, her nose into his hair, and she held him there until she had words to speak again.

    "You are so brave, Padfoot." She whispered eventually, nothing having felt so true before, "So brave, so beautiful, so brilliant."

He sighed when she traced swirling patterns on his sides, like he'd been holding his breath for her reaction all this time, and Ellie had never felt so privileged that he trusted her with his vulnerability like this. These were the moments where it was obvious they were made for each other, the ones that the likes of Lily and Marlene or the rest of their friends weren't privy to. There would be no one else ever that Sirius could be so open with, and he deserved that freedom, so he deserved Ellie.