Work Text:
The pain reached for him like water rushed to shore— in intervals, in little moments of respite, in agonising, overwhelming rush of feelings— and Regulus Black felt he was dying.
He was dying. Oh Merlin, he was dying! He was really, really dying! He could feel it. That was the end for him. He wasn't going to survive. This pain would end him.
He put his hand on his chest, he dragged the air in his mouth and screamed it out. Once more— fingers scraping at his shirt, hand clenched to reach the heart, mouth full of air— He screamed. He screamed until he felt his heart in his throat.
The echo rumbled in the cluttered space for a moment, it carried Regulus' voice across the forest and back to him again. Then it let only his sobs be heard.
He was crying. No, not crying. He was dying. The tears were coursing down his face, diving in his mouth and he was choking. He was choking to death.
The pain panged inside his chest again, it sliced another part in him, and Regulus fell to his knees. All poise gone, elegance forgotten, manners somewhere far away from him— he didn't even need them. Not time for any of it when Death was near.
Around him, all was too quiet. The silence felt almost eerie, intruding, like it was listening on him. Like the Forest was put on mute. It heard something and pressed Stop. Shhh, keep quiet! I think there's someone else that's here. Let me hear.
He hunched on himself and clutched his hands together. He pulled at them, scrubbed one by the other, did all he could do to stop from scratching the skin on his chest where it burned him the most, to stop reaching with his fingers to fucking take the pain away, rip it out before it would devour him whole.
Regulus felt like laughing. Laughing-crying. He could do both. Laughing-crying-dying. He was so fucking good at juggling things, he could've pulled that off easily.
His fists dropped to battle Earth. He was dying and he was choking and he was fighting the mud on the Forest's ground. Blades of grass stuck to his knuckles, hard wood sticks pricked at his skin. He thought they'd cut his skin. He didn't stop. Kept on pounding with all his might.
To die was painful. It hurt all over his body. Death impaled him; took his control away. It just left him a shivering creature, an ugly dying creature. It left him just a brain.
I'm so stupid, Regulus dizzly thought while his body rebelled against him. The faults all laid in him and he knew that. And even if he knew that, it didn't matter. This was not the time to ask for forgiveness. He did this— he fucking did this to himself and Regulus was the only one to blame and he knew that and it didn't matter anymore.
A sudden breeze of wind charged at him, and Earth was fighting back. This is a warning, it seemed to say. Be careful or else.
Regulus let his attack on the ground cease. He didn't dare look at the mess he'd made. With his eyes closed, he willed himself to calm the fuck down calm down calm down what the fuck stop it stop it stop it stop already
His hands were hurting, but the pain coming from them was better, it was sublime, it was bearable. More, he thought, more of this pain. He dug his nails on his palms and wished for Dorcas'. Or Barty's. His were too short, his were not enough. He wanted them claws. He wanted to draw blood. He needed to bleed outside his body, too fed up with it flooding in his chest, up his throat, in his ears.
His head dropped at his chest and his mouth hung open, breathing heavily. The sobs softened their intensity, they stopped rocking his body. It left him trembling. Just shivers.
It was cold. On the day Regulus was dying the Sun had hid away. The Sun left.
But the Sun was stupid. It was so stupid. So, so stupid the Sun was, Regulus hated it. Merlin and Salazar, but didn't Regulus hate the Sun! He despised it so much, he didn't even need him. He never did. He never fucking asked for him!
Then what was he doing? Why the fuck was he here? Why was he like this?
The sea hit the shore. Regulus started sobbing once more.
So stupid. Regulus shook his head, dragging air through his nose, letting it inside this time, choking on it when it hit the bottom.
Why does it hurt so much? Why am I crying? Why the fuck am I crying for?
“Fuck him, seriously. Fuck him so much!” he moaned while rocking on sobs again.
Regulus wanted him gone forever. He was an absolute and Regulus wanted him nothing. He wanted to break him and reduce him to something negligible. He was too much and Regulus wanted him dead. Finished. Nothing.
But Regulus was such a fucking liar! His heart knew it best. It was bleeding and hurting and lamenting over its broken parts now, because Regulus. Was. Such. A. Fucking. LIAR.
Regulus had let it get away from him. He'd lied and lied and lied, and he'd lied again and hid the truth, and he'd let it shatter in pieces. Said he didn't need him, but he'd wanted him. He'd still build futures for them together, still marched, heart out, towards his ending.
Regulus was not a fool. He might be stupid, but he'd always known there was nothing there. Not from the other. Only him. Only Regulus. He'd been the only one, and Regulus knew that.
And still.
He knew not to try, but he still fucking thought of it. He couldn't help himself.
And he'd thought… Oh, but fuck this, fuck this so very much!!! Regulus thought if not him, then nobody— at least not here. Outside the school, maybe, sure, whatever, but not here. Not where Regulus could see.
Stupid. So fucking stupid.
“So here's where you were hiding.”
Regulus was beaten. He didn't even have the energy to give into his fright. Fight or flight instincts gone. He was dying. Why would they have come to his aid anymore?
“Came to see the freak show, aren't you?” Regulus said. The words sounded harsh, his voice a wire sponge in the pith of his throat. It was carving at his windpipe. It hurt. But fuck if not everything was hurting. Hands, knees, chest, head, mouth. His heart was aching the most.
Sirius got closer. Regulus turned his head away.
Another number to count for the audience watching him. Forest, trees, the hiding Sun and Sirius.
“Does it hurt that much?”
Regulus snorted an ugly sound that cut off into another sob. “Fuck you, Sirius,” he mumbled the words. “Fuck you and your stupid— How did you know I was here, huh? Why are you even here?” In a hollow, broken voice, he begged: “Go away.”
He raised his hand to pass it over his face, meaning to clean his face, trying to pull himself together or something. Hide away the ugliness. Lock away the weakness.
He'd forgotten about the mud. It got all over his face, onto his lips. What a joke! What a fucking joke.
He'd tried to clean himself and ended up dirtier. He didn't care anymore. He was dying anyway.
Regulus lapped at the lips with his tongue to clean them, tasting Earth on them, tasting the bitterness from the ground, and swallowed.
“That's gross, Regulus,” Sirius chided him. He crouched down in front of Regulus and tried to take his face in his hands. Regulus dodged him.
He didn't want to be seen. He wanted to be left alone. Couldn't he have that in his last minutes? Couldn't he die alone, if peace was too much to ask for?
“Let me see, Reggie,” his brother said. And Regulus felt like wilding against him. He wanted to bash him like he did with the Earth. Beat him to a pulp. Dirty his soul with him. Then lick his hands clean.
But his hands were trembling, he was exhausted. He let himself fall into Sirius. He gave into the sorrow and hid at his brother's chest.
He smelled him.
Sirius was fucking smelling of his him, like him and Regulus was dying. “This is it,” he abruptly said, feeling it beginning all over again. Sharp breath stuck on his throat, pain in his eyes, pain in his chest. Everywhere. “It's the end,” he said with dismay and fright. He was torn all over, he was churned up, he was… he wasn't breathing normally.
And his brother must've thought Regulus was joking. He said: “It's not the end of the world, Reggie,” in a gentle tone. In a fucking calm voice, when Regulus was dying, how could he, how could—
“Not that! Me! Who the fuck cares about that when I feel like I'm dying, Sirius!” He sobbed into his brother's chest, his mouth wetting his clothes. He felt dizzy. And he felt, fuck, he felt: “I'm dying, Sirius,” he felt like that. He felt just like that. “I'm fucking dying, I swear to you!”
“You're not dying. Look at me,” he grabbed Regulus' head to raise it when he refused to do it himself. His face was all blotchy in pink undertones, his eyes rimmed red with how much he must have scratched at them. Some mud stuck to his eyebrow, to his nose, the corner of his lips. Sirius cleaned it all away with the pad of his fingers, making use of the tears streaming all over Regulus' face. All while he repeated: “You're alright. You're not dying,” to try and make Regulus understand.
“Then why does it feel like this?”
“Because you're in pain. You're hurting.”
Regulus wailed a sob. “I don't fucking want it to hurt, Sirius! I didn't ask for it! I never asked for this!”
Sirius swallowed his own cries down. The way he was hurting… The way his brother looked at him, with big, tear-filled eyes, stormy eyes resting on him and waiting. He felt like he was looking in a mirror. Same face, familiar grief.
It's the curse, he thought. It must run in the family. We're doomed to suffer. To pay the price for our family's evil. We're forced to live in misery.
“I know,” he said aloud. And he felt powerless. The words were stuck in his throat and he couldn't get them out. “I know you didn't.”
“Then why? Why, Sirius?”
A cold touch at his wrist, holding tight onto him. Grasping at his wrist's bones with trembling fingers.
Sirius clenched his teeth and forced his words to come to him. They rolled heavily from under his tongue. They came languidly, almost playfully. Almost like they were taunting him. “Because,” he began and stopped, voice cracking. Regulus was still sobbing, still falling apart in front of him.
Keep going, keep going.
“Because— because you wanted him. Because you want him, still. Because you, you know— You know there's nothing to be done, and because love is—” He stopped. Warm, shy, brown eyes. Messy, auburn hair. Smile to rival the stars and moon and sun. Rival the entire Cosmos.
A freckled-face passing his mind. Just passing. Never staying. Just walking through Sirius' thoughts to remind him what he'd lost. What he could never have back. Doomed to suffer. Pay the price. Live in misery.
“Love is… ugly for people like us. It's so ugly, because we're, we're… scared of it, and we scare it away from us in return. But we—” He stopped, blinked his eyes to shoo away emotions.
Keep going.
“We need it. People like us need it like air. And it's revolting. To need love the way we do, to love like we do, it's fucking repulsive. It's shameful.”
Keep going.
“And we know this. And this is why we don't try. This is why we never try, why we sit on the sidelines of it.”
Regulus shook his head. “I don't love him. I don't fucking love him! I hate him! I hate him so much, Sirius!” The pain hit again. It trembled inside his entire body, colliding in his organs; it put its hands inside him and twisted.
Tears wouldn't fall anymore. He was out of them. The spring had worn out. Regulus was drained. He just heavy-breathed, gasping like he'd begin turning inside out any moment now. Starting with his lungs. He felt he was about to retch them out, right then and there.
“Sure,” he heard his brother saying. Regulus really didn't like the way the word had sounded. Like nothing was ‘sure’, like his brother didn't believe him. “Of course you don't love him.”
“Why the fuck do you say it like that?” he demanded to know. He felt like raging. Yes, he could deal with rage. Rage was good. It was so good. It made his eyes flare up. It brought the pain to its knees.
“Like what?”
“Like you just fucking did? What?” he scoffed, “You think I'm lying? You think I'm—” he scrambled for the word, something to not sound like that one. Something… Something less than that. “You think I fucking care about Potter?”
“I think I never said a name,” his brother calmly said. For Regulus, it sounded like his brother was trying to pick a fight. “And I don't think so,” he went on. “I know it to be true. Don't try to lie to me, it won't work. I saw how your face dropped when Lily said yes. I saw how you stormed outside when they'd kissed.”
“Maybe I was just disgusted. Ever thought of that?”
“Sure you were.”
“Don't fucking say it like that!” Regulus raised his voice. “Don't act like you know anything about me! You know nothing!”
He looked his brother in the eye. He let all the fury he felt gather on his face and wield it so it'd hurt his brother.
“I'm not you, Sirius. I am not you!”
“Ouch!” Sirius only said. Then he gathered Regulus at his chest when he started losing it again.
“You weren't there. You're never there, Sirius, so don't patronise me. I fucking hate that.”
“Okay,” Sirius whispered. “I'm sorry, alright? I didn't mean to upset you.”
Regulus shaked his head. “You do,” he sobbed out, “You do it all the time, you've done it all these years. You hate me. You hate me, too!”
“I don't hate you, Reggie! You know I don't!”
“But you do! You stopped talking to me!”
“You never reach out to me either! Can't you see that it hurts me too, to have you always keeping me at arm's length?”
“Because you left, Sirius!”
“And I asked you to come with me! You said no. You keep on saying no. I get fed up, too! You're never nice to me. You keep on avoiding me,” he said, he complained, he hurt. “Don't you think it pains me too?”
“But I'm your little brother.”
In his chest, Sirius' heart gave a sharp jolt. His eyes started blurring in seconds.
“You little fucker,” Sirius said through his sobs. “You fucking little fucker.”
“Why the fuck are you crying, too?”
“Because you're a little fucker, that's why. Come here,” he said.
He held Regulus tightly. He held him and gently laid a kiss on his head, on the mess of his curls, and he tried to calm down.
“You're gonna get your snot on my hair.”
“Like you didn't? My robes are all wet with your droll.”
“‘m not drooling.”
He dropped his cheek on Regulus' head, pressing a little on it. “We're gonna be okay,” he said. Even if he wasn't sure if that'll happen. Not in this life at least. This one was doomed. Maybe the next one.
Regulus didn't respond. They didn't talk anymore. Regulus' breath kept catching in his chest every now and then, and Sirius' eyes felt prickly, but they kept quiet.
“Are we gonna sleep here?” his brother asked after a while, when the trees started casting their shadows over the land around them darker.
“Well, it wouldn't be the first time for me.”
Regulus turned his head to look quizzically at him from the corner of his eye, the skin taut on his eyebrow. It slowly smoothened. “You know what? I won't even bother,” he turned to look into the dark once more.
Sirius' lips trembled in an imitation of a smile. “You'd better not start avoiding me again tomorrow,” he said.
Regulus didn't respond. Sirius just felt his head moving.
“Good,” he said. “And you're coming home with me this summer.” He tightened his hold on his brother when he felt him trying to move. “This is my last Year, and I already have a place to stay. Not with—” he felt Regulus tensing. “Somewhere outside the city, you'll like it. It has this big garden that gives into the forest. And there's so much space where you can run, and run, and run—”
Regulus scoffed. “Are you planning on taking a pet to live with you? You described the best place for a dog or something.”
Sirius laughed raspy, a sound like he'd forgotten about. “Oh,” he exclaimed breathlessly. “There's definitely gonna be a dog there.” Then he began laughing even harder at his joke.
“You're being weird.” Regulus pinched him. “Stop being weird.”
The Forest was roaring with Sirius' laughs, the echo carrying it around the trees, over their crowns, and back to them again.
Regulus closed his eyes and let himself get lost in it. He banged his head only once on his brother's collarbone when images started revealing in his mind, to make them stop. They didn't.
He cried in silence. He cried to the Forest, and the trees, and to his brother.
The Sun had long since gone, but the Moon slowly took its turn to keep watch. It looked over the Forest and its trees, it let its light shine over the Castle and its closed windows, through them. Glanced her sight over two precious little creatures clinging tightly in the dark.
And the Moon thought them to be something pitiful, like cracks in a splendid picture, like life's ugliest damage— so the Moon shied its sights. It turned away from them, and only let them be.