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The Ticket


Ace Dante had been helping Sirius with fixing up his motorbike for nearly a week.

Sirius ran across the field outback the house, leaping through the overgrown grass, headed for the trees of the little wood that separated them from the village. He ducked beneath branches and over a couple logs until he reached the churchyard, where he transformed behind the stone wall.

Ace Dante was in his garage, laying on his back beneath the body of the motorbike, a large wrench in his hand as he worked on the engine. Sirius’s shadow cast over him and the young man raised his palm to block the sun and look up into Sirius Black’s face. Ace had on a pair of sunglasses and a bit of a scowl. “Mornin’ man,” he said.

Ace grunted his reply.

Sirius sat down and crossed his legs, watching as Ace turned back to the task at hand, Ace’s grease covered fingers working the knob and gears within the motorbike’s guts.

“How’s it comin’?” Sirius asked, “Think I can ride it soon?”

“She’s coming along alright,” Ace replied. He slid out from under the bike and wiped his palms off on a cloth. “Just a few more parts and we should be good to go.”

Sirius looked disappointed. He’d been hoping that it would be ready that day. He’d had to fight particularly hard with Achlys that morning to get the energy together to get out of bed. The night before, there’d been bad news from St. Mungo’s - Charlus was going to have to stay another week - the scales were growing too fast to let him go, and the look on James’s face when he’d told Sirius had made Sirius’s heart ache…

In true dementor fashion, Achlys had loved that.

She loved it even more when Sirius heard James crying through the walls and he’d gone to check on him and James had pushed him away. “I don’t want to be comforted, alright?” James had snapped, “Don’t touch me; don’t. No - I don’t want you here. Go back to your own room. No Sirius, not even as Snuffles!” James had pushed even the fluffy black dog away. “Please, I just want to cry about my dad and I want to do it alone, alright? I don’t want anyone, even you, to see me. Just go away.”

He’d laid awake in bed, listening helplessly, his guts churning.

He doesn’t want you. Doesn’t need you. You aren’t good enough at being a best friend to comfort him right now in this, the worst time of his entire life… What good are you?

And he lay there, listening to Achlys, staring through the dark...

Now, Sirius stared at the motorbike. All he wanted in the world was something to cheer him up, something to make him forget the horrible shementor, forget the way he could hear James’s crying echoing in his head. He wanted to get on that motorbike and ride it so fast that he left Achlys behind.

He wanted something to make him feel better.

Something to make him feel something that wasn’t sadness.

“What’s it gonna take to fix it?” Sirius begged Ace, looking desperately up at the young man.

Ace stared at him. He could see the miserableness in the kid’s eyes and a part of him felt guilty for the lie he told: “Maybe a hundred pounds more of parts,” Ace said, shrugging, standing up to break the eye contact Sirius was making. “Nothing to much more.” He wiped off the tools he’d been using, getting grease on his t-shirt. “Ah man, I’m exhausted,” he complained, stretching and dropping the tools into a small box on the ground. He nodded, “C’mon inside, I need to relax...”

“Alright,” Sirius answered and he rocked himself up to his feet from where he’d been kneeling, looking at his own reflection in the body of the motorbike.

Inside, Ace left Sirius in the living room on the couch again. He returned a few minutes later with a couple of beers. He knocked the caps off them on the edge of the coffee table in a way that made Sirius’s eyes widen with admiration, and he handed the first one to Sirius.

Sirius immediately drank half of his, and was disappointed by how little alcohol was in beer. It wasn’t as strong as the firewhiskey he was used to trying to drown away Achlys with.

Ace looked surprised. “You drink often, kid?” he asked.

“At school, some,” Sirius replied. “My friends say too much.”

Ace laughed, as though he thought Sirius was lying to sound cool.

Sirius added, “I sneak firewhiskey in from the village by my school. I throw big parties in the common room. Everyone looks forward to my parties - I’m the only one in our house that owns a stereo, and we turn it up really loud and magnify the sound and we dance upon the homework tables to the music. My boyfriend, Remus, he --” Sirius stopped suddenly. The word boyfriend had wrenched his stomach so tight that he felt instantly as though he were going to throw up.

There was a lot about the words that Sirius said that made Ace want to ask questions (like what the hell was firewhiskey, for one), but the face he’d made at the end was the most intriguing of it all. “What?” Ace asked, “What’s wrong?”

Sirius said numbly, “I called Remus my boyfriend. It’s just that he’s… he’s not. Not anymore.” Sirius felt Achlys wrapping her fingers, long and cold, right around his heart and squeezing as hard as she could. He lost his breath a moment.

Ace scootched forward in his chair. “I’m sorry.” He put his palm on Sirius’s knee… a little above his knee, really.

Sirius stared at Ace’s hand.

Ace squeezed gently on Sirius’s leg. “What made you break up?” he asked.

“I did a stupid thing,” Sirius whispered.

“So he left you,” Ace said quietly. “That’s what people do. All the fucking people do it. They build you up and they take it away… They leave you. People have left me, too.” His voice shook with anger.

Sirius was still staring at Ace’s hand on his thigh.

Ace patted Sirius’s leg, then drew his hand away and Sirius watched it go, swallowing back a lump that had risen up in his throat. He took another deep gulp off the beer.

“No wonder you look so bummed out,” Ace commented, “A broken heart’ll do that, kid.”

“My heart’s not just broken, Ace, it’s fucking smashed to smithereens. Remus breaking up with me ain’t even the worst that’s happening in my life. You have no idea how fucked up it is.” Suddenly Sirius couldn’t stop the words from coming out - they streamed from him the way the blood had done the night before, “I feel so fucking helpless, I feel like I’m just trapped in this circle that spins and spins, like a nightmare carousel, and I can’t get off it and I’m screaming all of the time inside and nobody hears me. My dad’s dead, my blood dad. My friend’s dad is dying. I feel guilty being there, being part of the family ‘cos I’m just a tack-on, and they only have so much time left to be a family. I feel bad being there, but… I don’t have any place else to go. I don’t know what to do half the time. I - I don’t have anybody to talk to but Achlys and she’s mean to me… I just want to… to be free and… there’s no freedom anyplace. I mean I felt some at the sea with Evans but she’s - she’s not - I mean to say that I miss my Moony and he’s in Iceland and -- he’s gone -- he’s got a new boyfriend, an older man who… who understands him better in ways I can’t and --” Sirius’s throat was so tight he had all he could do not to cry.

Don’t cry in front of Ace, he scolded himself. Don’t cry in front of Ace. It’s not cool to cry.

Ace stared at Sirius.

“I’m so fucked up, Ace,” Sirius said. “I just want to feel better. I want to feel something besides sad. That’s all I ever feel. Since January that’s all I’ve felt.”

Ace stood up suddenly, “Jesus Christ. You need something stronger than beer.” And he left the room.

Sirius sat there, taking deep breaths, trying to calm himself down because he felt really sick from how much he’d worked himself up. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and sank his face into his palms.

The couch sank beside him - Ace had come back and instead of sitting on the chair, he’d sat beside Sirius.

“Here, kid, you need some sunshine.”

Sirius raised his face from his palms.

Ace was holding out his palm, which held two tiny squares of paper - each one with a yellow smiley face on it. Sirius stared at them. “What’s that?”

“A ticket,” Ace answered.

Sirius picked one of the bits of paper up and turned it over, inspecting it for a second. “A ticket to what?” he held it in his palm, staring at the smiley face that grinned up at him insanely. “Like a show or something?” he was confused.

“No - no not to a show. A ticket to feeling something besides sad,” Ace said. “Here. Like this.” He opened his mouth and laid the paper he held inside, letting it adhere to his tongue, picture side down, then grinned at Sirius as he closed his mouth.

Sirius hesitated a second, “You… you eat it?”

“Let it dissolve on your tongue.”

“Why?” Sirius was confused again.

Ace replied, “It’ll take you away from all your problems. Make you feel something besides sadness - a trip.”

Sirius stared at it.

“Go on, kid...”

Sirius brought the paper to his mouth and tapped it against his tongue to see if it tasted funny. It had a sweet, almost candy sort of flavor, powdery almost like sugar mice could be sometimes, and he pressed it onto his tongue.

“There you go,” Ace said. And his voice sounded funny. His hand came down on Sirius’s thigh again and he patted gently, “You’ll feel better in a minute.” And Ace leaned back into the couch cushions, sliding an arm smoothly over Sirius’s shoulders.

For a few awkward seconds, nothing happened. Sirius just sat there, feeling the paper dissolve against his tongue, and the weight of Ace Dante’s palm on his shoulder, hanging about him so that Ace’s palm was on his chest… but then, something happened. Something like a blurring and suddenly Sirius felt strange. Like heavy and light at the same time and like everything was going fast and slow, like he could feel the earth moving through space so fast they could fall from it and he held out a hand to hold onto something and he caught onto the edge of the couch.

He closed his eyes.

“Are we moving? I think we’re moving. We’re moving. We’re spinning. It’s spinning. Why’s everything spinning?”

Ace laughed. “Just ride it out. It’ll get better in a second…”

Sirius was sure he’d fall… or not fall, float. He was sure he’d float off the couch. Like gravity was breaking apart because the earth was spinning too fast. He was feeling weightless. Was that why Ace’s arm was over his shoulder? Because if he moved it, Sirius might float away? He’d float and float, he thought. If Ace didn’t hold him down, he would float right into space and keep going for ages and nobody would ever be able to find him…

Except Jasper Odair because he is good at finding things.

Sirius turned and clung onto Ace. “I’m going to float away.”

Ace brought his arms ‘round Sirius, “Don’t worry, be cool.”

“Hold me down. Please. I can’t float away. I can’t float, I dunno how to float.”

Ace’s fingers wrapped about Sirius’s chin and stared into his face. “It’s part of the trip, kid,” he murmured. HIs eyes were blurry. Then he leaned down and he kissed Sirius.

Sirius’s mouth trembled nervously and Ace paused, hovering there a moment… waiting for a reaction, his mouth just centimeters from Sirius’s…

“Alright, kid?” he asked.

Sirius wasn’t sure what to do.

This is wrong, he told himself. Pull away.

Not wrong if it’s what you want, he argued with himself.

This isn’t Remus’s mouth.

Remus is far away.

Ace Dante’s here.

Ace Dante wants you.

Remus doesn’t want you.

He hasn’t even written to you.

Remus doesn’t love you anymore.

Ace doesn’t love you either.

And you don’t love Ace.

But it feels good.

So he kissed back.

He kissed back hard and urgent.

And Ace pushed him back against the couch.