Achilles

Jamie's Daydreams by Kevin Atwater

For the first eleven years of Sirius’s life, the only person he’d had to talk to was his brother. When he was sent off to boarding school, he made new friends, learned to trust people outside of the little bubble surrounding him and Regulus; but no one ever became so easy to talk to as Regulus was. Even now, even as an adult, Sirius confided every detail of his life to his brother, not a single boundary between them, telling Regulus even that which he clearly did not want to know.

“You don’t get it,” Sirius groaned. “Look at him, Reg, he’s fit.”

“Sirius, he’s like forty,” Regulus sighed, leaning in to look at the picture of the dating profile displayed on Sirius’s phone.

“So?” Sirius shrugged and continued to message the man, who was already discussing where they could meet up.

“So, if you’re going to spend nearly every night with a different guy, why can’t it at least be people your age?” Regulus questioned.

Sirius sighed, growing exasperated. “You just don’t get it. Older guys know what they’re doing.”

Regulus shuddered at the implications of Sirius’s words, but did not say anything further. He had spent months trying to convince Sirius not to do the things he did, not to go to bars or houses when he didn’t know if they were safe. But half of the excitement of it was not knowing what to expect, never being sure he would come out again.

By the next night, he was meeting the man, ‘Dave’. Sirius was waiting in the bar now, Dave being late despite having chosen the time and the location. The counter was sticky, the music was shit, and the entire place reeked. Harsh lights hit him square in the eye, the colours changing from red to blue to red to blue. Sirius hated it there, and it was exactly what he needed it to be. If the man had chosen a place like this to meet, there was no way he’d be gentle and caring. Sirius had found countless men online by that point, and though most were happy to use him, take him forcefully without concern for his comfort, there had been a few who insisted on being careful. Sirius didn’t know what to do with a thing like that. The pain was much easier to deal with. The place they chose to meet was always a good indicator of the type of person they would be. This guy would be perfect.

An hour later, Sirius found himself in the backseat of a car, struggling to find a comfortable position. The man didn’t seem to care as he was tearing Sirius’s clothes off, fucking him roughly, pulling his hair. The cold touch of a wedding ring on Sirius’s hip made him hiss and push back against the man. His grip on Sirius was so tight, nails digging in, and Sirius knew there would be bruises the next morning, leaving a little indentation of the ring behind. The man’s breath was hot and vile on Sirius’s cheek as he grunted, leaning in to press open-mouthed kisses from his jaw down to his shoulder.

When Sirius looked in the mirror the next morning, there were so many traces of the man on his skin, the bruising on his waist and the hickeys up his neck, the aches all over his body. Most of the time, Sirius felt less like a person and more like a composition of leftovers, pieces of every man he’d been with. He pushed down the disgust and grabbed his phone, notifications from other men popping up.

One man caught his eye, ‘Ivan’. His messages should have deterred Sirius, of course, threats underlining every word of his fantasy, talking about the things he’d do if he got his hands on Sirius. Sirius should have been scared, should have blocked him and moved on. But his hook-ups had been a little repetitive lately, not giving him the thrill they used to, none of that momentary relief that he craved. He typed out a response, as if daring Ivan to follow through.

They met the following week, Sirius having to drive a couple hours out of the city to get to the location he had been sent, Ivan’s house. His hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel to hide their trembling.

Sirius knocked on the front door, which swung open after a few moments to reveal a man, a little older than the photo on his profile, wearing a predatory smirk, a lewd air encompassing them. They didn’t share any pleasantries before Sirius was being led down to a basement. He should have turned and run. He didn’t.

It was a blur. It was Ivan’s hands on his skin, ropes tying him up. It was a knife, maybe, if the cuts along Sirius’s waist were anything to go off of. It was painful and violent and vulgar. Sirius learned that night that he was not, as he had thought, prepared to do everything. Whatever it had been, the details hazy, it was too far, even for Sirius.

It was a blur and there was alcohol, at some point. It was a blur maybe because there was alcohol.

It was a blur. Sirius couldn’t drive home like this, but he could not stay. He called the only person he could think of in this state.

“Reggie?” Sirius slurred. “Reggie, I think I’m bleeding?”

“What?” Regulus’s voice came through groggy. Sirius checked the clock in his car and realised that it was 4am and Regulus had been asleep. “Where are you?”

“Don’t worry,” Sirius mumbled. “I’m fine.”

“You just said you were bleeding. You’re not fine,” Regulus said. He was getting up and moving around, pulling on clothes and grabbing car keys, by the sounds of it.

Sirius sighed and leaned his head on the steering wheel. “You don’t have to pick me up, Reggie. I just wanted to call you. I’m sorry I woke you up.” He hung up before Regulus could say anything else, throwing his phone onto the passenger seat. He didn’t need Regulus to come and save him. He was fine.

The hook-ups became less and less frequent after that. What had been a small piece of bliss, a distraction from everything else going on in Sirius’s life, became just another thing making him feel empty. Men’s hands just felt dirty, the bruises making him unable to look at his own reflection.

At some point, he deleted the app altogether. But what had happened was past. Deleting his profile didn’t erase the scars, the knowledge that they had been inside of him and the feeling that they somehow still festered there.

For nearly a year afterwards, Sirius would not let anyone touch him. For nearly a year afterwards, a body he had once used to his advantage sickened him.

“What’s this from?” Remus asked him softly one night, tracing a calloused finger over the scars. Sirius tensed under his hands. He didn’t answer and Remus didn’t ask again. Sirius had told him everything, of course. But to admit that he had allowed a man to leave a permanent reminder on him, to have the echo of that night, and with it, all the others that had come before and the few that’d come after, permanently etched into him? He couldn’t say it out loud. Not yet. Remus’s hands continue to trace Sirius’s body as if it was not something rotten.

There was a gentleness to Remus Lupin that Sirius had not known for a long time, if ever. It disarmed Sirius, left him vulnerable and yet comfortably so. During the nearly six months that they had been together, some urge had been growing inside of Sirius, a want and a craving that he was so scared to give into. Not because he thought Remus would ever be rough, but because he knew he would be gentle. And how could Sirius deal with that? How could he deal with tenderness when he had only ever known violence? Still, he was willing to try now.

Sirius pulled Remus closer, kissing him deeply, trying to convey a need that he was too afraid to vocalise. 

It softened something inside of Sirius, having Remus that way. He did not feel it was being given to or taken from him, but something else entirely, something kinder, something shared. It healed something. Something healed that night.

-

Regulus did not normally do this. He didn’t know why he was doing it now. One moment, he was being dragged into a club by Evan and Barty, and the next he was being fucked in the bathroom of said club. He did not do this. His knuckles were white as he clutched the metal sink and watched the man—whose name he hadn’t even asked for—in the mirror. He was holding Regulus’s hips tight enough to bruise and thrusting into him and Regulus did not know how he’d gotten here, why he’d given over his body without a second thought. Maybe it was the way he’d smiled and teased Regulus, maybe it was the way he was not deterred in the slightest by his being trans. Regulus didn’t know. His head fell forward against the mirror, sweat-soaked hair sticking to his face.

They finished at the same time, something that felt so intimate in contrast to the filthy bathroom that Regulus would usually not even piss in, let alone have sex in. But the man pulled out, cleaned himself up with a tissue, got dressed, and left. Regulus was alone.

Aching, he steadied himself and walked out to find his friends.

“Not a word,” Regulus said threateningly at the sight of Barty’s grin and Evan’s smirk.

This was not something Regulus did, not after what had happened to Sirius. It wasn’t something that he did. Until it was.

Regulus didn’t seek out older men as Sirius had, wasn’t tempted by the more dangerous propositions. He was a little smarter about it, always meeting in public places, always with people he’d been talking to for at least a couple of days. It didn’t really matter in the end, though. He still ended up pressed against walls, filthy things spat in his ear, bruises the next morning. Despite all of his reproval when it had been Sirius doing these things, Sirius putting himself in harm’s way, some part of Regulus had always longed for that. The hickeys and marks were all proof that Regulus was wanted, and it had to be enough for him, to be wanted if not loved.

It was not a pretty existence, but it made Regulus feel real, to have someone inside of him, to have the tightness of their grips, and to know that they had seen all of him and had stayed regardless. But it changed him. He hadn’t noticed it, but Barty and Evan had. They’d asked him repeatedly what was wrong, why he was always unreachable these days.

The bar tonight made Regulus feel trapped. It was crowded, lights flashing red and blue, and when he ordered his drink, the bartender raised his eyes with a grin, looking Regulus up and down. He supposed he was a little overdressed for a place like this.

Regulus always showed up a half hour earlier than the time they’d planned to meet, so he knew what to expect, so he could get a couple drinks down before he was dragged to a bathroom. By the time the man he was meeting arrived, Regulus had already done four shots. The man immediately put his hands on Regulus’s waist, not wasting a single moment before leading him away. Regulus had come to expect this, no small talk or greetings before being bent over a sink or pushed against a wall.

Tipsy as he might have been, Regulus did not fail to notice the lack of protection, simply failed to care. He was prepared for the rough treatment, for the hair pulling and harsh sounds of skin colliding with skin; and then the man wrapped his hands around Regulus’s throat so tightly that he could not breathe. It was suddenly strange to Regulus that he had given over his vulnerability so easily, so many times, that he could be killed now because he had bared himself without thinking. The man let his throat go and pulled out in time to finish on Regulus, leaving him coughing and feeling stained.

As Regulus was stepping out of the bar, he saw the bartender from earlier, who furrowed his eyebrows in concern and moved a little closer to Regulus.

“Hey, you alright?” He asked.

“‘M fine,” Regulus muttured, wiping his eyes as though that was somehow going to make him sober.

“Do you need me to call someone for you?” The bartender put a steadying hand on Regulus’s shoulder. Regulus shook his head, trying to swear that he was fine, that he did not need anyone to help him. The only person he could think of was Sirius, and how could Regulus ask for his help when he had done what he had spent months telling Sirius not to?

No, he didn’t need saving. He pulled away from the bartender and started walking home, body aching and feeling like a hypocrite.