Starlight

If teardrops could be bottled, there’d be swimming pools filled by models, 

Told, “a tight dress is what makes you a whore”,

If “I love you” was a promise, would you break it, if you're honest?

Tell the mirror what you know she’s heard before

idontwannabeyouanymore - Billie Eilish

Regulus turns to James, giggling, stuffing his fourteenth spoon of edible cookie dough in his mouth. 

On screen, SpongeBob is doing whatever the fuck it is SpongeBob does, but for some reason, right now, him making a burger is the absolute funniest thing Regulus has ever seen and he just can’t stop laughing and James is laughing too and he keeps doing this thing where he sighs loudly once he’s finished laughing but it just sends Regulus laughing harder which makes James laugh again and he feels delirious with how little air he’s breathing right now and how happy he is and Regulus’ head feels all light but he doesn’t even want to stop. 

James says something, or he tries to, but Regulus can’t hear him, which is also funny to him right now, and James starts gesturing wildly, trying to make Regulus understand but he doesn’t and that’s just so funny as well, but then Regulus does get it and he tries to stand up to turn the volume of the TV down, which he’s sure is what James wants, but as soon as he does his legs give out, probably from how little air he’s breathing, which makes them both laugh so much harder and Regulus curls on the floor, his smile splitting his face in half and hurting his cheeks, tears streaming down his cheeks. 

Eventually, they do calm down. James makes a series of noises, trying to speak, and it takes everything in Regulus not to burst out laughing again, but he doesn’t. 

“Are- a- are you g-good?”

Regulus nods, “Y-yeah, you?”

James smiles, climbing onto the floor as well, and leaning onto Regulus. “Can barely breathe,” he pants. 

“Same.”

James sighs, lying down on the floor, closing his eyes. “That was fun,”

Regulus smiles, too, stroking James’ cheek with his knuckles, “Yeah.”

When they’ve finally caught their breath again, they sit back down on the sofa, only for Annie to come into the room. 

“Boys-” she sees the telly and quickly shuts it off. 

Regulus watches her, his gut churning slightly. She looks… worried. 

“Alright, look, I don’t know how else to say this-”

Her voice quivers. Regulus nearly throws up at the sound. 

When she opens her mouth again, James’ hand shoots out to grab his, threading their fingers together. 

“I- You’re parents made bail. They’re out of prison.”

Regulus blinks. 

“Look, we have restraining orders for you and for your brother, they can’t come anywhere near you and they can’t take you back, you are safe- and I’m so sorry, but I swear nothing is going to happen to you and..:”

She’s probably still talking but Regulus doesn’t hear anything. His chest hurts. In a different way than it did just a minute ago. He can’t breathe, in a different way from when he was laughing. There are tears streaming down his cheeks in a different way to just now. 

Regulus blinks, his vision wavering. 

He nearly blacks out for a second, body tilting, but James catches him, supports him, holds him up. 

He can hear muffled voices, see muffled faces but everything feels wrong and there’s a pounding on his head. 

Regulus tries to listen to it, breathing deeply, only to realise that’s not coming from him. 

“Door,” he mumbles. 

He can see better now. He can see the blurry outline of Annie’s blonde hair moving around the sofa and towards the front door. 

He can feel Bootes’ snout pressed against his cheek and James’ hand still holding his. 

And he definitely feels it when someone jumps at him, wrapping themselves around him in a way that is so god-damn familiar Regulus nearly blacks out again from relief. 

He can feel it in his chest, the way it shifts, his bones back in place, the stars shifting back to their orbit, Regulus falling right back into Sirius’ arms, just like he’s supposed to. 

The air smells of his coconut shampoo, just like it’s supposed to. 

His leather jacket is cold against his skin, just like it’s supposed to. 

His hair is tickling his nose, just like it’s supposed to and he’s whispering words Regulus hasn’t heard in months so close to his ear it’s slightly uncomfortable just like he’s supposed to. 

Because there are a lot of things Sirius does that make Regulus nervous or uncomfortable or straight on trigger him but that’s Sirius and Regulus loves him and he wouldn’t change those things for the world. 

He’s crying. Sirius is crying. 

Pretty normal occurrence if Regulus is honest but it feels so good right now. 

“I’m sorry,” Sirius starts to sob, speaking into his hair. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-”

“Shut up, Siri.”

Sirius cries harder but he does, and Regulus breaths out, knowing he knows Regulus ment it in a loving and ‘I forgive you’ way and not a ‘fuck off’ way. 

“I’m not- They- I won’t let them get anywhere near you, Ray, I promise.”

Regulus takes a sharp breath. 

Ray. 

Does he really mind? 

He’s always been Raine to everyone, but he never was to Sirius. Sirius would actually almost never call him Raine, always Ray. 

Ray wasn’t Raine just like Regulus wasn’t Raine and maybe Regulus and Ray aren’t quite the same but they’re not different either. 

Regulus has always hated Raine, but Ray was who he was when he was loved. Loved by Sirius, and nothing that Sirius loves could be bad because he knows who deserves his love and who doesn’t. 

The breathes out, nodding, letting Sirius hug him even tighter, experienced a third kind of ‘I can’t breathe’ in the span of twenty minutes. 

He has to admit, this one might be his favourite. 

It’s a while until they calm down. Well, until Sirius lets go of him, more like. 

James is still there. He’s giving Sirius slightly skeptical looks every now and then but he’s still there and he’s still holding Regulus tight. 

Annie’s solution to this whole thing is to order Chinese take out which they eat mostly in silence, Sirius and Regulus sharing a chair, because why the fuck not?

Regulus munches away on his dim sum, foot entangled with James’, when there’s another knock on the door. 

They all freeze, except Annie, and she calmly grabs the hockey stick leaning against the wall before walking over to the door. 

When she comes back, it’s with a short, sandy blonde woman and what has to be her son, except he’s practically twice as tall as her. He’s the one that was with Sirius on sports day, Regulus remembers vaguely. 

The short woman stomps into the room angrily, then promptly starts half-yelling in welsh. Regulus would be more scared of her if it weren’t for the way she keeps hugging Sirius every five words. 

“Honestly, Cariad, did you really think it was smart of you to run off in the middle of the night after we got that kind of news? You scared me half to death, love!”

“Sorry, Hope.”

She shakes her head, hugs him another two times and then turns to Regulus. 

“Oh, love, you must be Raine,” she smiles warmly, starts moving to hug him and Regulus blinks, coughs and awkwardly shakes his head. 

Hope looks at him, confused, when Sirius interrupts. “Regulus.”

Regulus nods at Hope’s questioning glance. “Yeah, um, Regulus.”

“Oh. Oh, dear! I’m so sorry, love-” 

“It’s, um, it’s fine.”

Hope smiles warmly, “Well, it won’t happen again, cariad.”

Regulus nods, “Okay.”

He glances over to James and Annie, finding them both glaring, though clearly trying to keep it together. Regulus places his hand on James’ thigh, rubbing his thumb gently against his skin. James looks at him, studying his face, and nods, taking Regulus’ hand in his. 

Annie walks over to the table and clears her throat, “Would you like something to drink, Hope?”

“Oh, if you don’t mind, I'd love some tea.”

Annie smiles, though Regulus can tell she's still a bit pissed about the whole deadnaming. 

“Of course I don’t mind. Anyone else?”
Sirius’ tall ass boyfriend shoots up like he just got a shot of adrenaline. “Me, please.”

Sirius snorts, muttering, “Typical,” under his breath. 

Regulus looks at him, confused. 

Sirius leans in and whispers, “He’s basically addicted to tea, I honestly think he needs help.”

Regulus smiles. “Tea is pretty good, I guess.”

“If you say so. I prefer coffee.”

“Ugh. Gross.”

“You’re gross.”

“Your face is gross.”

“Your tit’s are gross.”

“Yeah, well, your dick is fucking tiny-”

“Reg.”

Annie appears from fucking no where, startling them both. “I thought I taught you better insults, Bug, honestly. If anything, you should compare his dick to a miniature dachshund’s paw that’s been shriveled up after being eaten by a crocodile and shat out again before someone used an electric pencil sharpener on it.”

Everyone in the room is silent, until Regulus turns to Sirius. “What she said.”
And then Remus starts laughing so hard he gets a nosebleed. 

In the end, Annie invites Hope, Remus and Sirius to stay the night, which means that sadly, Regulus has to share a bed with James and Sirius with Remus, which of course all of them are ‘so disappointed’ about. 

It’s much cosier than Regulus expected, actually. Bootes is lying over his legs and Regulus is tucked against James, cocooned in his arms and he can hear Sirius already snoring just a metre away from him and everything feels so good. 

…Until Regulus remembers the actual reason this is happening. 

His parents are out of jail. 

And that means they’re probably back in their old house. 

Which is a ten minute drive from here. 

So really, Regulus is fucked. 

He ends up spending half the night shaking in James’ hold while he obnoxiously snores, and not even Bootes realises, the useless oaf. Regulus watches his mouth and paws twitch, probably dreaming about hunting a squirrel or something, not that Bootes has tried to do that, but he’s a dog right?

Regulus rolls over, again, so that he has his back against James’ chest again, probably the fifth time he’s been in this position tonight. 

Though it’s slightly different this time, because as Regulus squints through the dark, he eventually notices a pair of eyes staring back. 

“Reg?”

“Siri?”

“Can’t you sleep?”

“...no.”

“...oh. Do you want to go to the sitting room? Or eat something?”

“Okay.”

They manage to disentangle themself from the respective clingy octopus-boyfriends, both snoring away, and slip out the room and down the hall. 

“So, um, Annie seems nice. Though she wasn’t very nice about my penis.”

“Yeah, um, I like her. A little more since the penis thing, actually.”

Sirius laughs, “yeah, you would.”

“...do you like Hope?”

“Oh, yeah. She knits. And also her son is so pretty, so that’s a bonus.”

Regulus snorts, “You’re literally dating your adoptive brother, Sirius, that’s so gross.”

“Do not call him that. You’re my only brother, and if you ever say any differently, I’m going to have to tickle you.”

Regulus sits down on the sofa next to him, curling up against him. “I wasn’t the one who said differently.”

Sirius stiffens slightly. 

“Reg, you know I’m sorry, right?”

“Sorry for what?”

“For- for everything I said. In the summer.”

“It’s okay. I mean, it was pretty shitty of me to-”

“Reg. That- that wasn’t your fault. None of anything was either of our faults. Just theirs, okay? I- the only reason I got so mad is because she told me you didn’t care. She’s the one who put all that bullshit in my head. I’d never even thought of you feeling like that before she said it. She manipulated the absolute crap out of me and I’m so sorry I believed that shit, but this is what I mean, okay? They’re the ones who made us lash out at each other, not because we didn’t actually love each other. I have always loved you, and I always will, because you’re my baby brother and I basically raised you and I love you so goddamn much and these past few months have been the worst of my life. Worse than anything that happened in that house because at least then I had you. And I am so sorry what I said when I found out you were trans, Reg, because I swear, I don’t care if you’re a girl or a boy or neither or both or a fucking worm, Reg-”
“Sirius-”

“I just- I love you, and I’m sorry, Reg.”

Regulus sniffs, because jesus christ, and launches himself at Sirius hugging him as tightly as his fucking twig arms can. 

“Siri- you- oh my god, you’re going to make me cry.”

“You already are.”

“Fuck off. I love you.”

“Well isn’t this sweet.”

They both jump, snapping around to find Annie in her stupid cow night robe, leaning against the door frame. 

“You know, I gotta say bug, I would’ve at least given him one good punch before forgiving him, but you do you, love. Also, Sirius, that was very brave and mature and you just gained my respect so high five, lad.”

Sirius stares at her hand, slowly giving her a weak high five. 

She bows dramatically, then leaves. 

“She is so weird, Reg.”

“She’s better than the other one.”

Sirius laughs, “A slug is better than the other one.”
“Yeah. Does- does it weird you out that they’re just… around.”

“No… does it bother you?”

“I guess.”

“Why?”

“Why? How aren’t you freaked out? They could just come over here and- and break in and-”

“Reg. You have a boy toy with biceps bigger than your head-”

“-that’s not very accurate-”

“-and an adoptive mother who answers the door with a hockey stick. And a badass guard dog-”

“-he’s a service dog-”

“-do you really think they could go anywhere near you? None of us are going to let that happen. You’re safe. We’re safe. Okay?”

“...okay. I guess you’re right.”

“Damn right I am!”

Regulus laughs, shoving Sirius slightly. 

Sirius wraps an arm around his shoulder, stuffing his face in his hair. 

“D’you think you’re ready to go back to sleep?”

Regulus nods against his chest. “Yeah, I’m tired.”

When they go back to Regulus’ room, they find Remus and James in the exact same positions as they left them. 

Regulus climbs back into his bed, and James grabs onto him, still asleep, and pulls him close again. 

Regulus giggles softly into his chest and closes his eyes after one last look at Sirius, feeling so much better than he did before.