fangs and maths class

𝗥𝗲𝗴𝘂𝗹𝘂𝘀

𝘪𝘯.𝘰𝘶𝘵.𝘪𝘯.𝘰𝘶𝘵

they were stood by the benches at lunch.

barty was telling them some story, all regulus had managed to pick up was something about a fight he witnessed at the skatepark. he was far too busy focusing on making his lungs work. pulling air in and out and hoping none of his friends noticed that he didnt look right.

this whole thing had happened two days ago, on saturday. regulus had been sleeping, and he woke up at about 10:00 to find out that he wasnt breathing at all. he could still fake it, but he had to concentrate, he found out later that day when he was reading in the living room that if he didnt think about it he could go a few hours without taking a singe breath.

"...reg?" he took a breath in and looked at both of his friends in turn "pardon? what did you say?" he asked, hoping it only looked like he'd been zoning out, and not that he was too focused on breathing to listen. "we were saying we should go out for ice cream after school. you in?" evan asked he did a small smile and nodded "sure, i'd love some ice cream", thankfully the bell went, and they were off to english.

regulus had no clue how he was supposed to focus on anything. he was trying to keep breathing,and ignore the pain in his eyes from the brightness. which was odd, because the day was a perfect shade of boring grey and the sun was nowhere to be seen. he at least managed to get a few notes down on what the teacher was saying, but all in all he had barely any idea what was going on. he really wanted to run off and escape when the lesson was finished,but unfortunately he was called over by the teacher. Minerva Mcgonnagal was a lovely lady, sure she could be a little strict at times, but she really was a kind soul. "hello mr black" she said, tidying away some pens.

"hi miss" he responded '𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘨𝘪𝘦.𝘪𝘯.𝘰𝘶𝘵.𝘪𝘯.𝘰𝘶𝘵.'
"no need to look so panicked,i mearly noticed you were a little distracted today and wanted to make sure you were alright."

"im fine, just tired"

she gave him a look" ok, but you can always come and find me if theres any problems."
Regulus Black did have a problem, but it was one that his english teacher couldnt help with.
what he wanted to say was "i thought solving problems was the maths teachers thing" but instead he nodded, eager to get out.

luckily, she waved him off and he was able to walk away and race down the stairs to his fathers car as fast as possible. only when he got into the passanger seat and clipped his belt on did he allow himself to stop breathing again. his father raised an eyebrow in question, regulus turned away to stare out the window. they stayed silent the entire drive, regulus only broke it to inform him of his plans "barty and evan envited me for ice cream. can i go" his father nodded pulled into the garage. regulus, as usual, walked around to close the garage.

"AH" he exclaimed. normally,Regulus was fine, but today when a stray beam of sunlight hit his arm as he pressed the button it hurt. it 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘵. luckily he had managed to push it. but he couldnt hide the angry red mark on his arm, he did try, but the minute he walked in his mother was striding over and grabbing his forearm, pushing the sleeve of his school shirt up. "when did this happen" she asked. she almost sounded concerned,which was rare for her.
"just now" he mumbled.

" i'll get you some cream. stay here " she dissapeared away and came back with a small tub of something. "put this on it and it should be less raw and painfull." he took it and nodded greatfully
'i'm going to go get changed." regulus had to raid his entire wardrobe to find something with long sleeves, but the two or three he tried just rubbed painfully against the burn, so he ended up picking a plain black t-shirt and a zip up hoodie.

then he went downstairs, and was about to call out to say that he was leaving. but he could hear his parents talking.

"...when he got in the car he wasn't breathing"
"lets leave him,see how things progress, maybe he's trying to impress us?"

regulus decided he wanted to get going and took his ear away from the door. he normally would've taken a few deep breaths to prepare himself,but today that wasn't an option."im going out!" he shouted.

he opened the door and was about to step out when he remembered his arm. shit.
he pulled his hood up and zipped it up, then he stepped out, just a bit.

and he was fine.

he was half expecting to burst into flames or end up running back in ,screaming. but he was fine. he wasnt in pain,there was no flames, just a boy standing on his front step and checking himself over. once he was sure he was fine, he started walking to the café.

he arrived 20 minutes late. barty and evan were already sat down at a table that was,thankfully,in the shade. "you alright mate?" evan asked as he sat down. he was having to make an effort to breathe again, which was rather annoying "yeah, i'm fine, my parents were just going on at me when i got home." they both nodded, they certainly knew what that was like. barty's hand came up to touch the side of his face, he managed to play it off as resting his chin on his palm. him and evan pretended not to notice. their friendship went like this often. they joked around, and each tried to ignore their collective struggles.they were all bad in different ways. of course,regulus couldnt actually tell his friends about why his particular situation was bad, especially not right now. he couldnt exactly combat "my dad hit me" or "my parents dont think im good enough and actively try to stay away from me" with "yeah my parents are undead creatures of the night who make me drag out the bodies of their party guests"

"so,ice cream?" barty said. the other boys nodded and they went to the counter to ask for it. the other boys tucked in quickly, but regulus went slower. he knew what was happening, he was becoming a proper vampire, so he wanted to savour this food as much as he could.

that night, regulus was walking back, and as he went past a house he stopped in his tracks. something smelled delicious and it was coming from the alley by the house. someone was standing there, smoking and laughing. and this was when regulus realised that something was wrong. it was just a random guy, but he found himself drawn to the alleyway.

instead he ran in the opposite direction, he went as fast as he could, which was pretty fast, and practically collapsed inside. 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘤𝘬 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘥

𝗦𝗶𝗿𝗶𝘂𝘀

"you orright?" remus asked, the question had managed to break through the fog of sirius' brain. they were sat on the kitchen floor,the blinds were closed but there was a few beams of light that sirius was tempted to stick his hand into. he just needed a distraction today. "i will be" he responded. and remus gave him the look. "you know thats not what i asked"

"im hungry" he said. remus' brow furrowed
"you want me to go raid the blood bank-?"
"no remus,im hungry.and not for packaged and chilled for freshness stuff" realisation dawned on remus. "oh" he said. he shifted so that he was sat right next to sirius "will 10 seconds in the microwave and a glass fix that problem?" sirius started laughing at that, and as did remus.they both stayed there, on the floor of their shared kitchen.

eventually their laughter faded,and they both leant in for a kiss.

the space wasnt the best, but only one of them actually used it, and most of the time he either didnt bother cooking the meat or ordered takeaway,so the lack of things in the kitchen really didnt matter.besides,the only person who ever got invited over was lily,and she knew what they were.

Speaking of her,remus broke away from the kiss and sniffed the air. "you can come in and put the bags on the kitchen table lils. its unlocked" whhen he finished, the door opened and in came the redhead with two bags. one was full of things from the hospital,and the other was regular food from tesco. remus stretched out,his limbs cracking and popping as he stood up. he was getting a bit uncomfortable in himself,the moon was only 6 days away now,so his usual awkwardness and aches had increased by a thousand.he dug into the bag and started putting things away.

when he pulled out a few steaks,it looked almost like he was struggling to put it in the fridge. "thanks lily" he said,when he'd managed to turn away. she smiled,hoisting herself up to sit on the counter."no problem remus.is sirius okay?" she asked looking around. remus chuckled,running a hand through his hair "oh" she said
"yeah" he responded
"am i alright to be here? am i making him struggle?"

sirius whispered something from the bedroom,something that only remus with his advanced hearing could catch.

"fancy a walk lils?"

the two left, and sirius crawled out of the room and into the kitchen. he stumbled about,then reached into the fridge amd grabbed a bag. today he didnt even bother with a straw or anything,he just inserted his fangs and drank up.

then he checked the time, 11:27 and decided it was way past bedtime,so he climbed into their bed and let himself pass out. when he woke up,remus was pottering about in the kitchen, the sun had gone down. he came up behind him and put his chin on his shoulder. "heya" remus said,tilting his head to rest it on top of sirius'

"hi." he said.
he watched the steak sizzle in the pan, from remus’ actions, he could definitely tell that the wolf characteristics were coming out more. he was always a little wolf like: he often sniffed the air and loved when Sirius scratched behind his ears, but closer to the moon things were even more wolfish, his eyes turned more amber than brown and he could barely wait for anything to be cooked,his teeth always looked a little sharper,and he was more agitated than usual.

“you ok?” he asked. remus took a deep breath and nodded. Sirius decided not to push and pulled away,heading to the fridge for some food. now he did grab a mug. there was no two things in their house that were the same, so every glass or mug was unique and interesting. they had their regular ones (a light blue one with a chip in the rim for remus and a black and white square patterned one for Sirius) and the one reserved for lily (white with little flowers and a silver rim) but also in their cupboard was a multitude of others.

for Sirius,this was the equivalent of a morning cup of coffee, so he drank it from a mug.not all vampires slept during the day. his parents hadn’t, but it suited Sirius. it was difficult,he slept for most of the hours remus didn’t. but sometimes he stayed up into the day, or remus stayed with him on the couch, they made it work.

sure,being a vampire-werewolf couple was tricky, but their love kind of managed to transpire their differences. like when they were nearing remus’ first full moon of the relationship, and he was so scared and embarrassed at the more wolf-like traits, and his eyes and teeth, and Sirius simply told him that it was fine and that he had weird eyes and teeth too. what was most important was that they supported each other. when Sirius’s cravings got bad, remus stayed with him and helped him through it, and when the moon was nearing and everything ached and annoyed remus, Sirius gave him space and acted like his crutch when he had to.

remus came to sit next to him. Sirius had been watching some random quiz show that was on the telly, and it wasn’t very good,so he passed remus the remote.

Sirius was glad they had gotten past the shock phase. the first time he had a cup of blood in front of him, remus looked terrified to see his eyes turn dark and his fangs come out. but now none of them saw anything of it and continued with their evening.

Sirius leant over and stole a chip. “Hey!” remus exclaimed “Sirius that is going to taste like sawdust” he said,very matter of factly.
“yeah” he remarked “but at least it was funny.” he stuck it in his mouth and yeah, it tasted a lot like cardboard.
“you are so silly” remus said,turning back to the TV
“hey moons,fancy screaming at some writers?” he asked
“yes”

they did this often, they would look up ‘vampire’ or ‘werewolf’ and watch a film or a few episodes of a show and scream at everything they got wrong. it was a lot of fun. however, last time they watched twilight, and Sirius almost cried, so this time
it was his turn to drive remus. insane.

when the movie was finished, remus went off to bed, and Sirius decided to go for a walk. the moon was looking bright through the gaps in the trees, every few moments he caught a glimpse of it, he could understand why remus had complicated feelings about it. on one hand it was gorgeous, it really drew you in, all you wanted to do was stare up at it. but at the same time, the moon bought remus pain, once a month it turned him into something that had danger in its DNA. which was really just Sirius all the time.

a few times he could’ve sworn he heard something,but he couldn’t hear anything or smell any blood, so he brushed it off and continued his walk. there wasn’t much to do at night, so recently Sirius had been taking to some light breaking and entry. there often wasn’t much he needed in normal shops, so he instead made his way into other places, depended on what he was feeling.

then he would return home, wait for the sun to rise and for remus to wake up, maybe drink some more, then he would go to sleep and do everything over again.

it was a quiet life,but it was nice, and Sirius was finally content with where his life was at.