roartonrisen | (no subject)

"Well, it doesn't matter, does it?" Sirius replies, gaze catching briefly on the rag Kieren has pressed to his nose. He does worry, even now, about that trickle of blood. It's not the first time he's seen Kieren bleed, but it's unnerving all the same. Kieren had panicked the last time, had asked that they stop what they were doing so he could get his wits about him.

Now he seems hardly worried in the least.

Sirius runs a hand through his hair, lips still curled in a frown. "It didn't have to be a date," he points out. "We could've just arranged to meet up, not go anywhere. Maybe you might've remembered then."

"I want to remember!" he says, a little wildly as his irritation starts to build up and snap. "It's not like I intentionally left you stranded there. I don't remember making those plans, I don't remember sending that text, and I don't remember that I was supposed to be there."

And then, all at once, that hits him in a dizzying fashion that, combined with the bleed, makes him sag back on the sofa. Because what if this means the drugs aren't working anymore and his brain is losing the ability to make memories?

Kieren snaps at him, though Sirius hardly reacts. He's spent well over a decade irritating various friends and family members; the only surprising thing is it's taken him this long to get under Kieren's skin. He knew it'd happen soon enough, though he hadn't quite counted on Kieren simply forgetting him.

He's about to open his mouth and say as much, but he stops himself when he sees the expression coloring Kieren's face. "What?" he asks, lips curving into a frown. "Have I done something else as well?"

"No, I..." He swallows the fear, but it goes nowhere. It just sort of sits there and decides to keep growing, no matter what Kieren is trying to do. "I think maybe this might mean the drugs aren't working or that I'm starting to build up a resistance to them. Memories, making them, that would be a function of my brain when things are working."

And if things aren't...

He feels dizzy and it's half like the blood takes that as a reason to pulse harder, sludgy and black, and he shoves the rag against his face all the harder.

"Aren't working," Sirius replies, that worry that had flickered earlier suddenly flaring bright all over again. "Is this something that's happened before?"

Except, of course he knows the answer to that. There'd clearly been something wrong to cause Kieren's last rabid spell, a case of his drugs not working or something otherwise going awry. Kieren hastily brings the rag to his face again and Sirius feels another spike of panic. "Should I get Newt?"

"I don't know," he says quietly, his guilt starting to eat at him a little more than before as he stares at Sirius. "I can't believe I really forgot our plans," he says, aghast. Part of him wants to think that something is severely wrong, just to have an excuse for how he could do something like that.

"You don't know if it's happened before or you don't know if I should get Newt?" Sirius asks because, in this moment, he really isn't honestly certain exactly what Kieren can remember and what he can't. He's explained that it's a brain thing, that the drugs aren't enabling him to create new memories, but does that mean the drug could ever reverse entirely?

If this were a spell he might have some idea of what to do, but this Muggle science is boggling.

He glances down at Kieren's nose again, frown deepening. "What if you don't stop bleeding? What does that mean?"

"Both," he says quietly. He has no idea if this has happened before and can't tell whether he should be concerned because he hasn't got the memories to know. He eases the rag away and checks on the movement of the blood. It's slowed, but hasn't stopped.

He reaches a hand out to try and coax Sirius closer. "Please forgive me? I know I've made a mess of things, but I really didn't mean to."

Sirius looks at the rag as Kieren draws it away from his face, notes the streaks of dark, sludgy blood, a bit of it still trickling from Kieren's nose.

Deflating some, he steps forward, lips tugged into a frown as he sits at the edge of the coffee table. "It didn't strike me as something you'd do on purpose," Sirius replies, shifting enough that his knee lightly knocks against Kieren's. "I won't think anything of it if you promise to talk to Newt. I can go along if you'd like. If... well, in case you can't remember it later."

He nods, a little frightened at the idea that he might start forgetting more. "I think, just in case," he begins haltingly, hating to admit to such weakness, "that you should come with me, just in case I do forget." And that sends a frightening chill down his back -- which is what he's blaming his strange shakes on right now.

What's happening to him?

Nodding, Sirius keeps a careful eye on Kieren, gaze catching still on the press of the rag against his face. What does it mean if the bleeding doesn't stop? Or does, but then comes back again?

What does it mean if the drugs aren't working and Newt can't find ones that do?

Perhaps he's getting ahead of himself.

"Just say the word and I'll be there," he finally manages, smiling just a little as he rests a hand atop Kieren's knee. Kieren's shivering just a little and Sirius squeezes lightly. "Do you need anything now?"

"Don't leave, being mad at me?" he requests, as exhausted as he's ever sounded. He probably looks it, too, his eyes weary and his body sluggish with the ache of what he's done wrong. Even if he hadn't meant to, he still did make the mistake and now he's paying for it.

"I'm not mad," Sirius says because he isn't, not now that he knows the explanation, can see the remorse written all over Kieren's face. If anything, he feels foolish for his own anger, for presuming that Kieren had done anything so thoughtless when he knows better by now.

"And I won't leave if you'd rather I stay. I had planned to spend the whole evening with you already, after all," he adds with a small smile.

Sirius probably should be, because it's not the kind of thing that you ought to forget. He feels awful, both for forgetting and in general, and he isn't sure how to fix it. "We could stay in and watch something. I don't think I'm quite ready to brave people, with the memory issue, but...but we could curl up on the sofa and watch something here, maybe?" he offers as a possible amendment.

"Sure," Sirius replies easily enough, standing quickly only so he can shrug off the jacket he's been wearing and toss it over the back of the sofa.

He drops into the cushions a second later with no warning, pushing so he's pressed up close to Kieren, not caring a wit for the sketch on his lap until he notices what it's of. His grin widens then. "Thinking of me, at least, were you?" he says, his voice all tease and maybe a little smug.

Kieren stares at the drawing and glances up through hooded eyes, hopeful and bashful as he thinks of the drawing. Leaning up into his space, he cups his cheek and leans in for a kiss because he wants one and he plans to take it. "It's not done," he murmurs softly, when he eases back. "I have to shade it, give it a bit of character, maybe colour."

He isn't expecting the kiss or the cool, brief press of Kieren's hand to his cheek, but he's eager for either, the last dredges of his earlier upset fading entirely as Kieren settles back into the cushions.

"Given that it's me, I'd say it already contains quite a bit of character," he says, grinning. "What will you do with it when you're done?"

"I'm going to frame it and hang it in my living room," is Kieren's reply, confused as to what else he might do with it. It's not like Simon where he'd been ashamed and had hidden it away in a drawer. No, this is better. This is good and he's ready to be honest about it. He just sort of wishes he could have Sirius meet his parents.

"Any preference on the colour of the frame? Or the placement?"

Whatever he might've expected, it had not been the notion that Kieren might actually frame the sketch. After all, he's done more than a few that Sirius has seen already, all of them on sheets lying about the place. This one, he'll concede seems a bit more deliberate in form, but it's still surprising.

And pleasing.

"Anything but black," he says immediately, nestling in closer and stretching out his legs so his face is pressed to Kieren's shoulder. "It'd be just a bit too on-the-nose, I'd think. What about a rustic sort of gold?"

"I like that," Kieren says, fondly thinking of a portrait all in gold that hangs in his main room so that he can see it all the time. "Actually, I meant to ask...that thing you talk about, in your wizarding pictures. Is it something that we could do here? I wouldn't mind giving you something you could look at, of me."

"A picture I can hang in my flat, you mean?" Sirius replies, blinking in surprise at Kieren's offer. "Do you mean that?"

It would be possible, he thinks. It requires a certain sort of magic, but Sirius is confident he can acquire the things he needs from Harry's friend's shop. He just hadn't thought it'd be something Kieren would ever allow. "It won't be strange for you when you come over?"

"If you could figure out a way to take an image of me, I wouldn't mind knowing that you always have something of me there to see," Kieren says, trying not to be vain or anything, but he does like the idea of giving Sirius that. "Only if you want it, of course."

"Well, it'd be a good deal better than every portrait we had in my childhood home, a nice change from them shouting at me all hours of the day." He narrows his eyes then, playful as he rests a hand on Kieren's thigh. "I wonder what sort of things your portrait will say. I hope they're naughty."

Kieren swallows his laugh, but the disbelief stays in his eyes. "Wait, does it not just say whatever I do? Wouldn't it need me to say something like that in the first place?" The concept that this might be something of him that exists outside him is a strange thing and he's not sure he's entirely able to cope with that.

"Depends a bit on the magic," Sirius replies with an easy shrug. "I wouldn't want one that says the same thing over and over again -- that'd get terribly annoying even if it does come from you adorable face."

Sensing some unease, Sirius grins a little and reaches down to take Kieren's hand, giving a light squeeze. "It wouldn't say anything you wouldn't, however. It captures a bit of the soul of the subject. Not literally, of course; there'll be no bit of you actually existing in a portrait. I suppose it's more... your essence. No, that still isn't right. I'm not certain I can explain it, honestly."