It's been years since Sirius Black had contact with her family. It's been years since she'd seen anyone who was a part of that group of people who made her life so much harder by the expectations they'd put on her. Expectations that she'd never been able to meet.
Sirius found a new family, one that she built on her own. James Potter, Remus Lupin, Lily Evans, Marlene McKinnon, Mary MacDonald and all of her other friends and the friends of friends and mutual connections and colleagues.
"Sirius?" a timid voice asks, one that she doesn't quite recognize and yet it still twinges her heartstrings somehow. She looks up from her coffee (which is topped off with a bunch of sugar packages because she isn't a black coffee lover, thank you very much) and meets a pair of painfully familiar grey eyes.
Remus startles, saves his own tea from tipping over after Sirius stands up so fast that their entire table shakes (it feels as if he entire floor is shaking underneath her feet, like the world is falling apart and the sky is falling down).
The first syllable of a forgotten name makes its way outside Sirius' mouth. "It's Regulus now," says the figure of her younger sibling. The voice shakes, with unasked questions and unsaid words. It shakes with the same fear that has haunted Sirius for so many years now, always in the back of her mind. "We're brothers now," he continues with a tentative smile, one that seems to be at the edge of crumbling.
Sirius shakes her head, "No, no, we're not." Regulus' face crumbles. Sirius's stomach hurts and her throat gets choked up with words that she doesn't know how to say. She hasn't been able to think about how to say them. Hasn't allowed herself to think about a situation in which she'd been able to say it.
Regulus clenches his hands into fists to keep the hidden tears in his eyes from falling down. He had feared rejection, but he had gotten used to it over the years. The difference was that he'd allowed himself to hope this time. When he saw Sirius through the window, the surge of hope that overtook him had been strong enough to take over the fear.
She quickly finished her sentence before he flees the scene (like she had fled their house without a trial so many years earlier). "I'm not your brother, Regulus. I'm your sister now."
Remus has stood up, and he's standing next to her now, grounding her from the fear and anxiety that's coursing through her veins, that specific kind of anxiety that she hasn't felt in years. One that she's always related to her family, her parents, and eventually she might've started to relate it to Regulus. Even though she can see that Regulus is struggling with the same kind of emotions that are bubbling underneath her skin.
They had always been so alike, so similar in the way that they had felt things so strongly. Sirius had always been more explosive, though. Less capable of keeping those feelings quiet, and letting them burst out in explosions instead of letting them simmer inside. Regulus had always been so good at letting them simmer, pretending. He'd put on a mask and no one would notice the battle that was raging within him, except from Sirius herself.
Sirius feels her heartstrings tug painfully and the guilt (that she had managed to push away quite skillfully, mind you) pierced itself through her heart . When she had left their house (and Regulus with it), there was no one left there who could actually talk to him the way that she could.
Remus squeezes her hand now, and she's pulled back to the presence when he softly murmurs, "Love, he's talking." Sirius looks back at Regulus and she can see his lips move and his mouth forming words. Somehow because everything is so loud, she's calmed herself down so much that she cannot hear anything anymore. The anxiety has faded to the background, but she can feel her heart beating faster and faster and it's moved to her head and it's inside her wrists and palms and she can feel her neck pulse painfully.
Regulus has stopped moving his mouth and he's looking at her, the endless stream of words seemingly forgotten. He's still looking at her when the first tears make their way into Sirus's grey eyes and he's looking into them like he's never seen them before (which Sirius supposed might be true because he didn't have any reason to pay attention to them before; it wasn't like he'd never see them again).
Sirius is looking back at him, grey meeting grey and she's trying to squint and see him through the stream of water that's clouding her vision. "Regulus", she chokes out after which she lets out the most pathetic wet giggle that she's ever heard (which is quite an achievement since she often giggles like a drunken idiot). "Did you really name yourself after a star in the middle of the Lion constellation?"
Regulus' mouth quirks up at that, and a careful little light makes its way into his oh-so-familiar eyes, grey orbs that she couldn't believe she'd even forgotten. Then he says, with a soft voice, so soft that it reminds her of the years before he'd get scolded for speaking so quietly: "It made me feel more connected to you."
At that, Sirius' eyes start leaking even more and now she can barely make out his figure anymore, which is terrible because she wants to look at him more than anything. "Oh, fuck you", she splutters, "You just want me to cry like a small baby." She simply cannot believe that her little baby brother would pick a name that "reminded him of her". She could not imagine that she would've ever done anything that reminded her of him if he'd left her behind the same way that she'd left him. Even now, she barely did anything that reminded her of him because it always brought on these memories (of when they were little, in that terrible house and of when she wasn't as little and he was still little and of memories in which neither of them were as little anymore).
Regulus' little twinkle dies out a little bit and instead makes way for the familiar brooding expression that is just so common within the Black family. It still manages to cause a nervous spasm along Sirius' spine.
He says, in a voice that almost breaks at the end: "Sirius, I'm so sorry."
A moment of silence wraps around their little bubble, and Sirius is just staring at her brother without quite managing to process the words that were said. She opens her mouth, closes it. It isn't until she reaches behind her and feels the calming presence of her boyfriend backing her up, that the fog in her mind clears up.
"You're… sorry?" she asks, sounding disbelieving and almost flabbergasted.
The reaction causes Regulus to flinch (it would be invisible to most people, but Sirius was there before he taught himself to cover it up). "Yes, sister. I am so very fucking sorry."
Sirius can feel Remus' chest grumble at the curse word, as a sort of surprised roar of laughter. She could feel her own lips twist up in a bit of a grin as well after hearing her perfectly proper little brother use such profanities.
"I'm sorry, too," she then says, after a long silence in which Regulus does not dare to look up because what if there is anger resting in Sirius's eyes? What if the same resentment, the same blaze of fire that he'd seen in her eyes when she'd left so many years ago hadn't left yet? After those words, he does finally raise his gaze and lets it doubtfully meet Sirius's teary one. There is no anger in her eyes, not when she'd left all the resentment (or maybe not all of it, but it was most of it and that is all that matters) behind all those years ago.
Regulus has not looked away from her face for more than a minute now, and it's making her feel rather skittish because she couldn't remember when he'd dared to look at anyone for longer than a few seconds. He used to stare at people's faces and eyes all the time when he was younger, but mother had always scolded him for being rude and so she'd taught Regulus to count the perfect amount of seconds before looking away.
It makes her heart squeeze in her chest, knowing that he was willingly and knowingly trying to break the walls that their house had made them build around their "undesired" behavior. It makes her heart squeeze even tighter and it threatens to burst and break in half, knowing that she wasn't there for him when he'd first started to. He hadn't been there for her when she did, but she could've been there for him (but she hadn't been there).
Regulus is still not looking away from her, trying to drown into the familiar skin details like the look of her nose and the shape of her chin whilst also trying to memorise the new details, like the ear piercings decorating her ears and the glossy lip gloss on her smiling lips. Sirius is looking around, avoiding Regulus' stare because unlike him, she'd always been terrible at keeping eye contact longer than absolutely necessary (it was one of the main comparisons that her mother always managed to draw between them both, since neither of them could ever do the eye contact in the way she wished).
Whilst she is looking around the coffee shop, from Regulus' new haircut to Remus' cup still half filled with the cheapest espresso coffee, she is the first to notice a girl walking up towards them with no doubt behind her steps, which means that she's rather sure that her path towards them is the right one.
Before Sirius can even consider saying anything to either Regulus or Remus, the girl stops just behind Regulus and places her hands in front of his eyes. Instead of slapping them away, or whirling around in shock like Sirius expected, Regulus let out a sigh and grumbled in mock exasperation, "I know it is you, Pandora."
The girl twirls around, now ending up next to Regulus and facing both him and Sirius and Remus at the same time. She claps her hands and Sirius has trouble keeping track of her face as her space-themed earrings twirled around. "Oh, it's so much fun when you always guess right!" she exclaimed excitedly.
Regulus is looking at her with fond annoyance, Sirius is able to see right through his expression, in a way that she didn't think she would be able to do still. This girl could do or say anything and Regulus would most likely just smile at her. Raising one eyebrow (in a way that almost has Sirius bursting into tears), he says, "You do know that that means that the surprise of your little game is completely missing, don't you?"
Pandora, as the girl was called, waves her hands around in a dismissive gesture. "Oh, but that's not even the point of it," she replies, without giving any further of an explanation.
As an older sister (a title she hadn't dared to claim in years), Sirius finds herself watching the interaction with keen eyes. She notices the small tilt of Regulus's mouth in the left corner, and she sees the way in which his eyes twinkle lightly. It makes her remember that the ache in her heart that won't fade easily as she once thought it would (it's a dull ache that probably won't fade away at all).
As an older sister, Sirius knows that this girl is one of the reasons why Regulus is able to live on without drowning in the past and without faltering whenever a face in the corner of his eye looks a little too much like one of the faces inside of his memories.
So naturally, as an older sister, Sirius has no clue what to do or how to react (she wasn't sure if she had the right to react at all). Luckily, the girl seemed to have some natural sense on how to avoid painful situations. Without faltering, she stepped forward and said, "Hello, I'm Pandora. Since Regulus never tells anyone anything, who are you?"
Remus looks at her when she doesn't answer at first and his questioning look makes her realise that they're probably expecting her to speak up. She opens her mouth, but Regulus beats her to it, "That's Sirius. My sister."
Pandora looks at Sirius now, and usually a gaze so focused upon her would make her feel uncomfortable. But Pandora's eyes are merely curious and do not hold any judgement or resentments within them. The girl's deep-brown eyes flicker from Sirius to Regulus and pause shortly to hold a silent conversation with his brother, one that Sirius is unable to decipher.
"I see it," she eventually says, smiling brightly. Sirius can tell that this is not the end of it, because the curious look in her eyes hasn't disappeared at all. Instead, the wordless discussion she'd had with Regulus seemed to have increased her interest.
For the first time upon meeting a new person, Sirius didn't feel uncomfortable underneath her questioning gaze. She still had the urge to shift around in her seat but it wasn't as bad as usual, when it felt as if the eyes of the spectator were pricking holes into her body and her brain.
Remus clears his throat, clearly trying to break some sort of tension or maybe just to clear the air from the painful silence looming in the distance, "So, Regulus, Pandora, are you two a couple?"
Sirius freezes in her seat, in a very uncomfortable position that she hadn't meant to end up in. The same question had crossed her mind the moment that she saw Pandora and Regulus interact in the same comfortable way she always spoke to Remus with.
Pandora just looks at Regulus, with a small amused tinkle in her dark brown eyes while Regulus rolls his (in a far too familiar manner). At this, Pandora presses her lips together to avoid laughing. She then says: "Oh, yes, me and my dear Regulus here are absolutely madly in love."
With one eyebrow raised, Remus considers the two of them. "You're fucking with me," he decides.
Pandora gasps, with one hand full of brightly coloured nails to her heart. "How could you say that to us? We're absolutely smitten with each other!"
Regulus lets out a "tsk" sound, one that he knows sounds eerily similar to his mother's (Sirius notices too, but she would never tell anyone that she still remembers the sound of her mother's disapproval). Regulus then glances at Pandora, fleetingly, as if to ask her a question. She shrugs, a small smile still tugging at the edges of her mouth.
"When you ignore the fact that Pandora is into women and I'm very much into men, we are absolutely in a committed relationship with one another," he then says, decidedly, without even an ounce of shame (there's a small tremble within his words, but neither him nor anyone else would dare to comment on it).
A small, secret little smile creeps onto Sirius’ face, and a traitorous little tear threatens to leak out of her eyes. Regulus pretends as if his heart isn't beating an unhealthy amount of beats per second, and Pandora smiles brightly whilst Remus chuckles at the ridiculousness of the entire situation. Only a couple of hours ago, he and Sirius had discussed the relationship, or what was left of the relationship, between Regulus and Sirius and Sirius’ wish to reconcile with her sibling, even without knowing if he would even want her back.
There was a certain absurdity in running into him now, and a certain awareness from Sirius’ side that maybe, it had been an uncoincidental coincidence. Those didn't happen very often, and she is quite aware that some people did not believe in a phenomenon like that. Sirius though, has always been a firm believer in miracles that just cannot simply exist without meaning something more. In this case, it convinces her that maybe, they were always supposed to find their way back to one another. Perhaps he had been thinking about her in the same way she'd never stopped thinking about him (maybe missing each other was written in their blood in the same way their relationship was).
The sight of Regulus, her little brother, standing in front of her, with a trembling but proud smile on his face, with a friend next to him who looks like she would give Regulus (her little brother) the world, and vice versa, is almost enough for Sirius to forget the sleepless nights filled with worries and questions about pent-up fear and anger.
A small flush makes its way onto Regulus’ face, and he is unable to hide the surprise in his eyes when Sirius stands up out of her chair. Sirius does not miss the flicker of fear within them. It softens her heart and hardens her anger (against what they did to them, both of them).
“Can I hug you?” she asks, stupefied by the easy flow of those words outside of her mouth, even though she hadn't said them in years. She hadn't even dared to think about ever saying them again. Regulus opens his mouth, presumably just as surprised, and for a moment she's scared that he'll refuse her the solace of a long-awaited embrace.
But Regulus looks at her, his sister, now standing in front of him, and he dares to ignore the small sparkle of scared emotions that he can spot in her eyes. Instead, he finds comfort in the familiar spot below her left eye, and the small rasp in her voice (even though it sounds higher now, the warmth in it has never left).
“Yeah,” he says, and he can feel Pandora smile and vibrate with joy next to him, even without looking at her. “Yeah, I'd like a hug.”