1
James
The devil went down to Georgia, and his name is Regulus Black.
I knew the face of Lucifer. I had gone to Bible school enough as a kid to identify his hauntingly gorgeous gaze. His bones were cut, his eyes severe and appraising, lips soft and pink. Regulus Black was every bit the fallen angel.
Not many folks move to the south to escape small minds. Sirius was open like that, saw that the south was certainly a religious place, yes, but also the most diverse region in the country. He saw that Appalachia was all about helping out your neighbor, not turning your back on them.
Or maybe he was just another unfortunate runaway who got swallowed by the wiles of the mountains
Sirius got our sense of humor right away. We clicked one night at a bar— he was a traveler, looking for a spot, and I was dead broke, looking for a roommate. He moved in with Remus and I the next week, got a job at the tattoo parlor a few towns over.
He thought people would stare at him and his roguishly long hair or his rockstar leather jacket, and to be fair, they did. But only ever to ask him about his motorcycle, about what a certain tattoo means.
It's good people down here.
Regulus Black, however, looks at the town like something he stepped in when he arrives on our doorstep, knocking primly. I stared at him a moment when I opened the door. It had been awhile since I had been to church, but I suppose I never stopped believing in the rapture.
The only thing that managed to take me out of it is how closely he resembled Sirius, a more clean-cut and cold version of him, youthfully gorgeous, intimidating. "You must be Regulus Black."
"And you must be smarter than you look," he looks over my shoulder into the house, slipping onto his toes, careful not to crease his fancy shoes. "Is my brother here, by any chance?"
I lean against the doorframe, blocking his view. I didn't particularly like his manner of speaking, the way he looked into my house without asking. "You have his number, don't you?"
"You may have never noticed, but my brother's phone is dead more often than alive," he replies. "And I need to talk to him. Now."
"He's not here," I tell him, smiling broadly. "Would you like to come in?"
"Where is he?"
Demanding, isn’t he?
"At work," I tell him. "Would you like to come in?"
"Where does he work?" He asks. His cadence is too perfect, and I hate it. "Can you give me the address?"
I check my watch. "Oh, he'll be around any minute now," I shrug absently. "Would you like to come in?"
He looks at me levelly. "This southern hospitality thing is suffocating," he looks me over briefly, dismissively. "You gonna offer me tea so sweet it gives me a cavity when I come in?"
I step aside, leaning against the other edge of the door. "Guess you'll find out," I cross my arms.
He glares at me as he walks past, smelling like expensive cologne and clean linens. I watch his backside as he goes, dressed impeccably in a pair of grey trousers, a white button down tucked into them. His sleeves were rolled up from driving, the slight sheen of sweat from the southern summer, a ruffle in his otherwise perfect black hair.
I wonder if he rolled the windows down in his fancy car. I wonder if the winding Appalachian roads made him feel so sick that he had to brave the fresh air rather than simply turning up the AC. I wonder if he drove with both hands on the wheel, radio off, terrified of breaking his concentration and rolling down the mountain.
I lead him into the kitchen and pour him a glass of water. "Fresh out of sweet tea," I tell him, leaning back against the fridge to examine him further. "You gonna ask my name?"
"I know who you are," he scoffs, sipping his water. "You aren't the boyfriend—"
"What makes you so sure?"
He wrinkles his nose. "You're too chatty," he observes. "Sirius is chatty himself. He doesn't like to be talked over."
I roll my eyes. "We happen to be best friends."
"And I'm sure you guys have amazing, ear-splintering conversations at each other all the time," he says condescendingly. "But Sirius only ever had crushes on the quiet boys in school."
Fair enough, I shrug. Moony was... quiet, in some ways. Reserved was the better word for it. He had things to say, but only when he knew you deserved the privilege of hearing them. Sirius, I imagine, has the privilege of hearing most of it.
"And who did you have crushes on in school?" I ask, tilting my head.
He evaluates me, my posture. "Teachers," he answers.
"Teachers?" My brows raise.
"I liked to be told when I was being good," he shrugs absently, finishing his water. "Are you certain my brother is on his way? I'd hate to spend any more time in your kitchen discussing my romantic preferences."
I shrug. "Who can ever be certain when it comes to Sirius?" I reply. "There's nothing Sirius hates like a routine. I wouldn't be surprised if he was taking the long way home to listen to Bohemian Rhapsody on loop."
He shuts his eyes, his irritation poorly concealed by the twitch in his jaw.
"Remus might be about, though," I raise my voice, and Regulus flinches. "Remus! We have a visitor!"
"The boyfriend?" Regulus replies, unimpressed.
"You'll like him," I grin in his direction as I hear Remus stomp around upstairs. "He's a teacher."
...
Regulus
James was, regrettably right. I do like Remus. It's easy to, really, as James is driving me crazy with his yapping and his fake fucking accent. I mean, come on? That couldn't be real.
Remus is quiet, measured, asks me normal questions, doesn't pout when I tell him I can't answer some. Most importantly, he keeps me sane until Sirius arrives.
"Whose BMW was out front?" Sirius asks, shouldering the door open before he sees me. He stills. "Oh."
"Yeah, oh," I grunt. "Took you long enough."
"Sorry, I wasn't expecting company," Sirius says pointedly. "I mean, what the fuck, Reg? Since when do you show up somewhere like this?"
"We should give them some space," Remus mutters quietly to James.
"Fuck, no," James murmurs back nosily.
"Since Mom and Dad were involved in a deadly car crash," I answer flatly. "I came to mourn with you."
Sirius only looks briefly shocked about the revelation that both of our parents have died— he looks more skeptical at the second bit. "Fuck, Regulus, what did you do?"
I blink innocently. "You think I, what, killed them?" I raise my brows.
"That's exactly what I know you did," he sneers. I look around at his roommates, and he scoffs. "They're fine, just in shock. They're not gonna tell anyone that you're lying low here."
I scoff. "I didn't kill them," I tell him flatly.
He rolls his eyes. "Always in court," he complains. Mother and Father owned the biggest law firm in Boston, representing high profile clients in exceedingly crooked cases. I was their protege, the heir to the practice. "Even now, you give me the oath-abiding answer. Sure, you didn't kill them. The car did, right? The car you sabotaged?"
"I'm sorry— you killed your parents?" James blinks dumbly, and I groan, looking away. Sirius doesn't know how to watch his fucking mouth.
"Don't feel too bad, James," Sirius puts in. "They're the most crooked fucking people alive."
"Dead," I correct, not unhappily.
"What the fuck," Remus whispers softly, eyes wide.
"They have a lot of enemies," I shrug at Sirius. "They took on the Tom Riddle case." Riddle was found dead last night, by my calculations. I'm not saying I killed him and my parents, but I'm saying there is certainly no evidence to link me to such crimes if I had. Tom was the CEO of a data mining company that sold its medical data to all sorts of crooked people across the world.
He had a lot of enemies, and by extension, so did my parents.
That's all I'm saying.
"What are you guys in the fucking mob?" James asks, eyes wide.
"Yes." Basically.
"He's kidding," Sirius says, squinting. "Just... our parents are high profile. Were high profile. They did some crooked stuff for some crooked money. It was bound to bite them at some point."
"Are you not freaking out, Moony?" James gapes at Remus. Stupid nickname.
Remus shrugs. "I knew why Sirius got out of town when he was eighteen."
"Which was...?"
"Prongs," Sirius squints. Another stupid nickname. "I told you, man."
He blinks back through memories. "Sirius, I thought you were joking," James gapes, southern drawl coating each and every single word.
"Why would I joke about attempted murder?" He tilts his head. To be full fair, that is certainly something he'd joke about.
"I don't know— I thought it was because you were northern, and I didn't understand your humor," he pouts, rubbing his head.
"Hmmph," I consider. "Well, nothing like an untimely death to bring two brothers together, wouldn't you say, Sirius?"
"I'd say anyone with half a brain can see you're full of shit coming here."
I smile, tilting my head. "But you'll put up with me because you don't want to indicate yourself either," I observe him. "Can't have anyone digging too deep. You didn't wrap your ends quite as neatly as I did."
Sirius' jaw ticks. He left when he was eighteen. A ton of crushed lithium pills that Sirius wasn't taking for his bipolar disorder, and our parents were hospitalized. My father was horribly ill, and my mother was in a week-long coma.
Sirius left, and like my parents always do, they covered it up. Attempted patricide? It's a bad look, even for the Blacks. It was an unsaid thing that Sirius never show his face again.
So I nearly told Mother and Father when he got in contact with me again, purely on instinct.
Curiosity was stronger. I've always been quite naturally curious. It's why I took to school so much— you know, aside from the tremendous pressure my parents put on me to get into an Ivy.
So I kept talking to Sirius, and he told me where he was, told me I should come find him. I had laughed across the line, told him I'd rather not slum it, thanks.
So time passed by, and one law degree from Columbia later, I reached my natural limit. Tom Riddle was quite the fraudster, and the unethical business practices were just the tip of the iceberg with him.
Every criminal lawyer has thought about murder. We are trained in it, really. We know exactly what gets people caught, and we know exactly what we'd do to make sure we aren't.
"And are they?" Sirius demands. "Wrapped neatly, that is? I don't need you bringing too much heat here."
I huff. "My hands are clean," I hold them up for emphasis. "Yours too, despite that awful black nail polish."
Sirius, despite his natural skepticism, knows he can trust me on this. He knows I've always been too smart for my own good. "Well, Regulus, wait outside a minute, so I can discuss with my roommates."
"I'm not asking to stay," I tell him plainly. "I just need the optics of being nearby."
"There isn't an inn for another thirty miles, Reg, and even that's across state lines," he says, resigned. "You're telling me that in your extensive planning, you never checked to see if there was an inn around these parts?"
I squint. "I suppose it was overshadowed by the more critical parts of the plan," I admit. "I can sleep in my car a couple days—"
"My room has an extra bed from when Sirius used to stay in there," James says. "If Sirius trusts you, then I suppose you probably won't murder me in my sleep."
I raise my brows. Clearly, he trusts Sirius a lot to invite a presumed murderer to sleep in his room at night. Mind you, we do not like each other. I look him over. "No promises."
Sirius groans as James grins. "Be nice, Regulus."
I look at him, breathing out. I didn't particularly want to stay in this glorified southern frat house, but I suppose I've left myself no choice. "I'll go get my things," I say and leave them alone to talk about me to their hearts' content.