brothers
That was close. If Sirius had been… whatever he had been for a little longer, he would have been dragged into some ambulance where a whole team of medics would check his vitals, only to come to the horrifying constatation that they weren’t there. Sirius would either have to pretend to be dead for real and spend maybe another century in a casket underground, or play along with being some medical miracle, all because of one stupid clove of garlic. He still felt sick, but he also still had no desire at all to bite James whatsoever, so he guessed it did its job well.
“Do you want to talk to me about it?”, James tried again when they were out of earshot from the others.
“Not really”, Sirius said.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Stop asking questions?”
A good thing about James potter was he cared a lot about his friends. A bad thing about James potter was he cared too much about his friends. “Hmm. Not a chance”, he hummed. “What was it? What did you take? I’ve never seen that happen to anyone before.”
“I can’t tell you”, Sirius said. He got the feeling he was saying that a little too often lately, but he was in his right to do so. Besides, he still got a clove of garlic somewhere down his throat and he really wasn’t in the mood for much talking.
James was quiet for a while. Maybe he’d try again tomorrow, or whenever his patience ran out. It was quite a long walk out of the forest, or maybe that was just Sirius, because he couldn’t walk very fast yet and every step felt a little uncomfortable. A bat soared above their heads.
Fucking hell, not now…, Sirius thought, but from behind a tree, a cloaked figure appeared, startling James.
“Who are you?”, he demanded.
“Dare to scream and I’m going to construct a trampoline out of your guts, pretty boy”, Regulus threatened, not helping much with James’ fear. He urged Sirius to flee with him, but Sirius held his wrist and stopped him.
“What’s up, Reg?”, he asked tiredly.
“I should ask you the same”, Regulus stated. “You know, it hurts me when I see you do stupid shit. You still somehow manage to bring shame upon the family.”
“I have nothing to do with your stupid family anymore”, Sirius said. “Now leave us alone.”
“Garlic, really?”, Regulus went on, ignoring everything he said. “You’ve weakened yourself, you know that, right? And what for? I could just fight you of right now and take your boy.”
James seemed utmost uncomfortable with the way this conversation was going. Sirius couldn’t blame him, but he also couldn’t run away from his brother. “So why don’t you?”
“You’ve taken years to play with your prey. Allow me to enjoy at least the length of a conversation with mine.” Sirius did not like the sound of that at all. Regulus nodded towards James. “He doesn’t know a thing yet, right?”
“Sirius, what the hell is he talking about?”, he asked, sounding more than a little scared.
“I’m taking that as a no”, Regulus continued. “Your ‘friend group’”, he told James while making quotation marks in the air, an awfully modern trick for an old-fashioned vampire, “keeps a lot of secrets from you. But I watched the whole ordeal, and brother mine, I nearly have to call it comedy.” He was talking to Sirius again. “You, being fucking stupid enough to trust that fleabag, not even a day after meeting him, to accept literal garlic, and fucking eat it? Don’t make me laugh. That’s golden.”
“Regulus, get the hell out of here”, Sirius asked of him, but he knew he wouldn’t comply.
“Garlic?”, James asked confused, “but you’re deadly allergic to…”
“Now’s not the time to discuss that, James”, Sirius urged. “You need to get out of here. Regulus will try to kill you.”
“Who do you think I’ll chase when you two split up? Please, quit being so stupid. You’re embarrassing yourself, and the whole family by extent”, Regulus scoffed.
“Because it’s so much more honourable to ambush your brother and kill an innocent man?”, Sirius retorted.
“Yes”, Regulus answered without a doubt. “Because ambushes are smart and killing is what we do.”
“Sirius, what is going on here? Is he the one who murdered those people?”, James asked. His voice sounded like he could start crying.
“No. I’m really sorry about this, James”, Sirius tried to apologise. “I was going to tell you everything eventually, I swear…”
“Oh, cut the crap!”, Regulus moaned. “You were going to play around with him for another ehh… ten months, before you would just kill him yourself.”
“You pathetic little shit!”, Sirius snapped. “I would never hurt him. HE’s my brother, not you!”
Regulus laughed out loud. It wasn’t pleasant to listen to at all. It sounded more like a hyena rather than something human. “You never cease to make a fool out of yourself”, he said. “Oh, I’m actually going to miss the entertainment when you’re done with the whole ‘I like humans now’ act.”
“It’s not an act and you know it”, Sirius sneered. He got defensively in front of James but he still felt weak in the knees and his head was spinning like crazy. Regulus took his defence as a challenge and prepared himself to fight. He had always sucked at this part, but Sirius doubted he could still win from his weaker little brother in his current condition.
Regulus hissed, baring his teeth and his razor sharp fangs. James stumbled backwards. “What the hell is going on?”, he begged for the last time, nearly crying. “Don’t play these jokes with me.”
Sirius made sure he still stood in between his two very different brothers. When he hissed, it came out all wrong, only getting garlic scented air back in his mouth. “Get out of here! I’ll hold him off for as long as I can!”, he shouted to James. He didn’t need to be asked twice. He was gone like an arrow.
Sirius took the honour of attacking first. He jumped Regulus, grabbing some cloth of his coat with one hand and punching him in the face with the other. His neck craned backwards and when he looked back at Sirius, he had the look of a provoked, wild animal in his eyes. His knee flew towards Sirius’ stomach, and he folded over at the hips. Regulus grabbed a handful of his long black hair and pulled his face towards the same knee with one lightning fast motion. Had the fucker trained or was Sirius really getting this weak? He didn’t know, but he felt disoriented and couldn’t see quite right. Regulus was in three places at once as he kept pulling his hair, dragging him somewhere. Sirius couldn’t really fight it all that much anymore.
“You’re getting weak”, Regulus spat in his face. “It’s pathetic.”
Sirius’ whole body was asking him to collapse again, but he knew that as soon as he gave up the fight, Regulus would fly after James, so he just had to stay awake while he took all the punches and kicks. Now and then he tried to swing his own fists towards his brother, but he never had enough force to do any real damage. Then it happened. The black blotches came back, he was blind again and his body hit the ground. Regulus didn’t wait for him to wake up and start fighting again. He took off to find James.