To Float In Your Orbit

Regulus stares at Riddle for a moment, both of them silent,“So, who is the target?”
“James Potter.”

The last time Regulus saw his brother, he was drunk. Piss drunk. So drunk he could barely walk. He stumbled into Regulus’s room in the middle of the night, begging him to leave, barely coherent. He had packed already, everything he could reach shoved into his school luggage that he could barely lift.
“Come on, we have to go,” He slurred.
“I’m not going,” Regulus watched Sirius's face fall, the hope that was there a moment ago gone.
“What?” His voice shook a little, and Regulus wondered if it was the alcohol.
“I’m not going. You shouldn’t even be going, you’re drunk. You haven’t thought this through,” Regulus said, his voice shook a bit too, but he’d never admit it.
“No, no, I have thought it through, we have to go,” Sirius was pleading then, his voice slurred and desperate, glancing at the door every few seconds as if their mother would walk in. Regulus watched the door too.
“We can’t.”
Regulus didn’t think Sirius would really leave, not without him. But he did. He left Regulus, drunk in the middle of the night and still shaking from what their mother had done to him earlier. And he ran away to James Potter’s house.
Regulus was angry. He wasn’t sad, the anger came first. And the anger never went away - even when the sadness came. The sadness went away soon enough.
The anger didn’t.

The week passes, Regulus doesn’t send the message. He spends his time with Barty and Evan because he knows he won’t see them for months, and he tells them about the job.
“You have to send it eventually,” Barty blows smoke out of his mouth, Evan nods in agreement.
“Why can’t I just shoot him?” Regulus complains, “I already hate him, just for making me do this job.”
Evan shakes his head, “You need to message your brother before Riddle kills you instead. What do you have so far?”
Regulus sighs, reading off his phone, “Hello, this is Regulus.”
Evan groans, Barty laughs.
Regulus frowns, “Is that not right?”
Barty shakes his head, “Just put some sappy shit in there. A sob story about how you miss having a brother and shit.”
Regulus does miss having a brother, “Absolutely not.”
Barty rolls his eyes, “You can’t just talk like a robot, even though that’s how you text everybody. You should work on that.”
Regulus rolls his eyes, “You write it, then.”
Barty takes Regulus’s phone and starts typing, Evan watches over his shoulder, talking into his ear.
Barty starts reading off the phone a few seconds later, “‘Hi, this is Regulus. I miss you and I want to talk, are you available for lunch soon?’ Perfect! And it still sounds vaguely like a robot, so he’ll still believe it’s you!”
Regulus shakes his head, looking like somebody just told him his grandmother died. “Just send it.”

When a few days went by and Regulus didn’t get an answer, he started to hope he never would. That hope was crushed shortly after. Sirius responded, and he agreed to meet for lunch. Fuck.
Regulus has a week to prepare, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever be ready, not for this. He would rather have lunch with his mother, and that’s saying a lot.
What do you say to someone you haven’t seen in seven years, who you’ve been angry at for seven years? Regulus is supposed to play nice, but he doesn’t know if he can. He’s thought of what he would do in this situation for so long, he’s had dreams and nightmares about it. None of those scenarios included him being nice and wanting to ‘make up’.

Regulus arrives an hour early, even though he’d rather not go at all. At least he can get familiar with the place before he has to see his brother. It’s a small cafe, Sirius picked it.
Sirius walks in exactly when he said he would, looking around nervously before he spots Regulus. He looks relieved, but like he might throw up at any second. Regulus feels the same.
“Hi,” Sirius sits down across from Regulus, the wood chair scraping across the floor and making them both flinch. Sirius looks different. Better:. He’s not as skinny as he used to be, and he’s covered in tattoos, but that’s about all that’s changed. He doesn’t seem drunk, either.
“Hi,” Regulus says back, not knowing what to say.
“I didn’t know if it would really be you,” Sirius is looking at the table, not Regulus.
“Yeah.”
“What made you decide to text me? It’s been seven years, and there’s been nothing,” Sirius looks at Regulus now, his face nervous.
“I’ve wanted to for a long time, but it was never the right moment,” Regulus lies through his teeth, he never wanted to see Sirius again.
Sirius smiles then, taking Regulus by surprise. It’s a sad smile, but still a smile nonetheless,. “Me too.”
Regulus doesn’t smile back, he can’t.
“I thought you hated me,” Sirius confesses.
“I did hate you,” Regulus confesses back.
Sirius nods.
“I thought you hated me,” Regulus looks at the table.
“I think I did,” Sirius whispers.
Regulus nods, fighting tears. He can’t cry. He doesn’t cry. Especially not in front of his brother.

When he was little, seven or eight, Regulus had a lot of nightmares. He would walk to Sirius’s room as quietly as he could and sneak into his bed, crying. Sirius usually understood, but sometimes he didn’t.
“You hated me,” Regulus cried, covering his face.
“But I don’t hate you,” Sirius said, frowning. Regulus could tell he didn’t understand.
“But you did. In my dream.”
“I’ll never hate you,” That’s all he could say.

It was good enough then, but it didn’t last. Regulus wonders if he ever thought it would, really. He thinks he did. Then he excuses himself and goes to vomit in the bathroom.