You Shall Tore Me Apart, With Gentle Hands, I'll Love You Still
Regulus stares at the letter in his hands.
'For my dear sister,'
And that's just impossible. Sirius would never leave like this. He wouldn't leave him with just a hushed written note, leaving half his room still furnished.
Except, it is a very 'Sirius' thing to do. At least since he came back from that school trip.
He folds down the note, carefully stashing it away in his sleeve as his mother comes up to know why her children were taking so long to come down to breakfast.
She's absolutely devastated as the emptiness of the shelves hits her.
"Orion! Orion! Oh God!" She sobs hysterically. Their father runs up the stairs shouldering him to pass.
Regulus stands by the doorway watching with nausea as his mother falls to her knees by his older brothers bed, crying about how her baby abandoned her. Orion seems perturbed but still tries to comfort her by kneeling by her side and whispering at her.
After some time, Regulus grows bored of the sight. What did they expect would happen? They used and abused Sirius, then suddenly decided to give a sixteen year old unbidden freedom by making him a legal adult by law to go to a stupid college he didn't even want to go to. Of course his brother would immediately drop off from the face of the earth.
He goes to his room, closes the door.
'For my dear sister,
I'm sorry.
Love, Sirius.'
━━━━━━━━━━━ ⟡ ━━━━━━━━━━━
The moment Regulus walks into the cafe, he's blasted with the infernal sight of Mulciber waiting for him by the serving line. He sighs deeply before ignoring the man and walking directly pass him.
"Good morning, darling." He purrs and Regulus has to hold himself not to throw a well deserved punch. Lucius would be displeased if that happened.
"Go away or I will punch you." He warns him. Mulciber laughs as if Regulus had told him the best joke ever. His hands brush over Regulus' hips and not even two seconds later Mulciber is on the ground clutching his face and yelping in pain.
Regulus looks at him unimpressed.
"I warned you." He turns back around and walks behind the balcony door. He closes the door making sure to lock it before changing to his work uniform.
"Black, what the hell do you think you're doing by punching customers!?" Mr. Riddle, his manager, yells through the door.
Regulus adjusts his work shirt and opens the door, staring at his manager and Lucius who's eyeing him up and down in distress and disappointment.
"I told him to go away or I'd punch him. He laughed. He tried to put his hands on me. I did warn him."
Lucius sighs, hands rubbing his face as he breathes in deeply. "I'll deal with it, go help Evan with the orders at the back, Riddle, come with me."
He internally sighed with relief. Mulciber had been a pain in the ass ever since he saw Regulus and thought they had gone to school together. They hadn't, then he realized Regulus was not Sirius, who was apparently, an only child according to their hometown's memory. Mulciber was three years older than Sirius, so he'd never even met Regulus before, and still, he would misgendered.
He greeted Evan before starting to help. The hours passed by and finally, six hours later, Regulus was off clock and heading home after changing clothes in the changing room again. His lungs cramped and his back hurt, but he stood his ground and only took off his binder after he locked the door of his one bedroom apartment. He threw the binder on the clothes chair, sitting down on his couch and immediately stretching while relieving his tense back and shoulders.
He lazed around for a few minutes to relax before he put back his shirt and took off his shoes. He filled the small bowl next to the kitchen isle and turned on the tv for some background noise as he began making dinner. The only thing he could manage to put in his mouth this entire week without immediately gagging: Instant soup and bland cooked pasta. Delicious, in a sarcastic way, of course. But it was food. He sits back on the couch with a bowl full and puts on his favorite show that he has seen at least twenty times before and never gets old.
He checks his social media, not that he really uses it, his accounts are ghostly at the best, a post every four or five months with a pic of something, usually his cat, Tup.
Mindlessly scrolling, he almost chokes on a forkful of noodles as he sees it.
There on the cracked screen of his phone, his brother poses for a photo, a small smile on his lips, sleeveless black shirt leaving very little to imagination because holy shit, Sirius got tattoos like the tattoo shop would run out of them, his right arm is fully almost fully sleeved. His eyes rapidly read over the post's announcement and it catches his attention.
Album: Family Line, now on every streaming platform.
Huh. So he really made it. Got himself a music career and all. Regulus is suddenly not hungry at all. The smell of food actually making him nauseous, he puts it on the coffee table, laying down on the couch, the show playing on TV forgotten.
His mind goes back to those days. When him and Sirius were always together, where Sirius would annoy him and at the same time take care of him. He wonders if his brother ever thinks of him when he's unable to sleep.
Does he ever wish to go back and fix things?
Does he ever think about coming back?
Does he ever feel slightly curious to know what had become of his... dear sister?
He clicks on the link.
It's been years since he's heard his brother's voice, but he recognizes it immediately. It's raspier, but somehow, as soft as when he'd comfort him at night and holyfuck, Sirius, you absolute gifted asshole.
The tears pour down before he's even able to breathe again.
It's... Overwhelmingly full of hurt. It's depressing. It's their entire childhood, all they have ever known and it's bared to the world where anyone can see it.
Fuck you.
Fuck you, Sirius.
He thinks as he muffles his sobs with his hand and immediately rips it away. He refuses to let his old habits come back because of one song. He wishes he hated Sirius for leaving. He only wishes it because he can't. Even after leaving him behind, with a stupid ass note, cutting off all contact and never speaking to him again, Regulus still loves his brother. He doesn't think he can ever imagine himself hating Sirius.
He finishes the album, tears still streaming down his face.
His brother left. His brother left before he could see Regulus for who he was. Sirius never met the unknowingly brother he sings about in this song, the shadow of a person he once knew. Sirius has never seen him as himself, and it hurts deeper than anything else. His brother probably thinks she's still back home. Studying to become a teacher, married to the richest of their father's colleague. Sirius never knew how cutting off their family broke them all. He never had to deal with the consequences.
Regulus was tired. He is exhausted of hoping his brother would finally love him enough to come back, because nobody ever did that. He was nobody first choice, he knows that, he's made peace with that.
Sirius is and will always be the one who everyone's choice, who was he to even compete?
But Regulus is also resentful. How dare Sirius never look back? He abandoned him and cut him off completely of his life, then sang about it as if he was the one being hurt. How dare he lay bare the skeletons of their past without making sure the ghosts wouldn't mind?
Well, this ghost minds very much. And he will haunt Sirius down.