Resurface
Regulus sat on the bathroom floor next to Sirius. It was the middle of the night, and Regulus wasn't able to sleep in this form, so he had watched as Sirius abruptly woke up from his nightmare and walked into the bathroom. Sirius was crying, mumbling apologies and other incoherent things. The sight was very upsetting. There was nothing he could do but watch.
Sirius stood up, walking over to the sink to dig through his drawer. Regulus' heart skips a beat as he pulls out the blade of a razor.
Hell no.
Okay, he would have to do something other than watch.
Regulus abruptly stands up. Sirius has barely lifted the blade before it's knocked right out of his hands and onto the floor. Not having time to waste, Regulus rushes out of the room. Peter has a couple of plants on the table by his bed, so, quietly but quickly, Regulus picks up a pebble from inside the pot and throws it at Remus as hard as he can, which isn't very hard but it gets the job done.
Remus looks up, alarmed. As soon as he does, Regulus throws another pebble at the bathroom door. Now Remus is definitely confused. He stands up and goes to grab the pebble at the bathroom door. Sirius sobs very quietly, but Remus is close enough to hear now. He knocks on the door. Sirius breathes in sharply and Regulus hears the sound of metal hitting the ground. Remus hears this too.
"Sirius?" Remus asks cautiously.
"Go away." Sirius croaks.
Remus twists the door knob, but it's locked. "Alohamora," Remus mumbled under his breath. He opened the door slowly, Regulus trailing behind. Sirius was curled into a ball in the corner of the room.
Remus wordlessly walks up to him. He places a very tentative hand on Sirius' back, but he still flinches.
"Sirius, can you face me?"
Sirius just shakes his head. He was quite stubborn. Regulus rolls his eyes, annoyed that Sirius is so stubborn and annoyed that he can't forcefully turn him around.
Remus flicks his gaze downward and spots the blade on the floor. He takes a deep breath.
"Sirius, you need to turn around."
Sirius lets out a strange choked noise. Slowly, he faces Remus. "I'm sorry."
Regulus hates this. He feels like he shouldn't be seeing this, but he wants to comfort Sirius. But he did this. Sirius is in this position because of Regulus. Regulus had hurt him.
Based on the two boys body language and the way Remus reacted to seeing what Sirius had done, this had happened before. Regulus really did not like this.
Remus began patching up Sirius, and Regulus left the room. He needed to know that Sirius was okay, though, so he sat on Remus' bed and read the opened book laying on it. The pages were light enough to turn, so he was able to read through the book for a while.
Eventually, the doorknob twisted and Regulus flipped back the pages quickly, hoping he flipped back to the right one. Remus and Sirius came out of the room and both sat on Sirius' bed. Regulus went and sat on the far end of the bed just as Remus shut the curtains around them, casting a quick silencing spell.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Remus whispers. Sirius stays silent for a minute or two before speaking up.
"I had a nightmare. He was yelling at me." He says.
"What did he say?"
"He- he said it was my fault."
He sounds like a child when he says it. Afraid. Hurt. That's what he is, isn't he? A child. Only seventeen years old.
You're a child too, he thinks.
"And that's the truth, isn't it? What if i hadn't left? What if i never said all those hurtful things? He would be perfectly fine. Even if he survives this, he will never be the same again. It's all my fault, Remus." Sirius whispers.
Regulus' heart just about breaks in half. It wasn't Sirius' fault. It was his mother and father's fault. Barty was right, wasn't he?
Remus' heart seems to do the same. The look on his face can only be described as sad. Just sad.
"Sirius, it's not your fault. You had to leave, and everything you said to Regulus was only because he said something first. But i don't think he meant most of that, and i don't think you did either.." Remus contemplates something for a moment. "Have you read your note?"
Sirius looks up. he reaches across the bed to retrieve the note sitting on his nightstand.
"I- I can give you a moment if you want. I don't want to-"
"Please stay."
So Remus does. Regulus watches intently as Sirius reads the letter, and then reads it again, and again, and again. He looks up at Remus and immediately starts crying. Remus holds out his arms and Sirius collapses into them. Regulus is also crying now, just wanting to say something, anything to his brother.
"I want to see him." Sirius chokes out.
"Soon, love. Try and get some sleep, yeah? We'll go visit in the morning."
Sirius sniffles and nods into Remus' chest. He eventually wears himself out and falls asleep, tears staining his cheeks. Remus falls asleep too, once he hears the sniffles stop.
Regulus leaves after that. He lazily roams the castle, trying to think about anything but all the damage he's caused.
He can never do enough, it seems. All he ever does is make people sad. Now, here he is, making more people sad. It's what he does best.
And all he can do is watch.
The night passes slowly, but passes nonetheless.
Regulus goes down to breakfast and listens in on random conversations for the most part. He's very tempted to throw bacon at one of his friend's faces or something, but decides that might actually freak them out.
He eventually spots Sirius and decides to just go sit with him and his friends. The food smelled really good. Regulus wanted nothing more than to taste something again. literally anything.
Sirius claims he's not hungry, but none of his friends are having it. Remus is trying to get him to eat, but still being gentle. James is going on a whole rant about why Sirius needs to eat and Peter is quite literally shoving food into Sirius' mouth. This seems to lighten Sirius' mood, because he laughs a bit and eventually eats about half of his food. Regulus smiles.
Eventually, everyone finishes and Sirius says he and Remus are going to visit Regulus. They had gotten special permission from Dumbledore to visit Regulus on Saturdays, but unless something major happened, it could only be Sirius and one other person he chose. Regulus thought that was bullshit, but it's not like he could do anything about it.
Remus and Sirius floo to the hospital and Regulus gets there shortly after. Again, he isn't actually sure where this hospital is so he just wills himself to be with Sirius.
Sirius is still checking in when he arrives, so Regulus just walks to his hospital room. He's still not entirely sure what he's trying to do, but he figures standing in the waiting room won't do much.
He finds his room and stares at himself. He looks a bit better, less blue and less corpsey-looking, but still unsettling. Walking up to his bed, he cautiously prods his arm. Usually, Regulus could touch people, but his hand passed straight through his own body. Well, he had woken up inside of it, not on top of it, so it made sense.
Right. He had woken up as a ghost inside his body. So was he his own soul or something?
He laid back down on the bed. It was weird, laying in his own body. This better work.
Once he's lined up with himself, he suddenly feels extremely tired. It was like all that sleep he hadn't physically been able to get was catching up to him. It didn't make sense to Regulus, but he certiantly wasn't complaining. He'd missed sleeping.
In just a few minutes, the darkness filled his vision and he was pulled into sleep.
Everything was black. Regulus was conscious, but everything was black. Was he dead? He wasn't trying to die. He was trying to live.
His hearing started to focus. There was a steady beep coming from the left of him. He could smell cleaning spray. Someone was talking to his right.
Who was talking? The voice was familliar, but he couldn't seem to make out any words they were saying. It was comforting, hearing it, so this must be someone significant. It felt like Regulus had blanked out,and he couldn't really make sense of anything. The voice was a bit deeper than his own, with the slightest hint of an accent to it. An accent. What accent?
French. The person talking was definitely french.
Regulus was french,too, he remembered. So someone related to him?
That seemed to be what snapped him back. thinking about family. He knew who this was. He knew that voice anywhere.
Sirius.
Sirius was talking to him. He was apologizing. Why was he apologizing? He didn't do anything wrong.
"-and I'm sorry that I left. I'm sorry I let you go so easily." Sirius was saying. He sounded so upset. Regulus wanted to tell him it wasn't his fault, and then he remembered he could. He would have to get used to not just observing.
"S'not your fault," Regulus slurred. His voice was so quiet and distorted he wasn't sure Sirius even picked up on that based on the silence that followed. Apparently, he did.
"Reggie?" Sirius whispered, not seeming to fully believe this wasn't some sort of hallucination.
Regulus slowly managed to open his eyes, which took an embarrassing amount of effort.
Regulus gave Sirius a dumb lopsided smile. Sirius was crying and laughing at the same time.
"I- You- I thought-" Sirius tried, but gave up on trying to talk and instead pulled Regulus into a far too tight hug. Regulus coughed and Sirius loosened the hug, holding onto Regulus for a solid minute before pulling back to look at him.
"I can't believe you- what made you think- Okay, I need to go get a doctor, i'll be back, but you are in big trouble." Sirius said, walking towards the door. Regulus just rolled his eyes and laid back down.
Regulus went in and out of conscious a few times. He blinked and there was a doctor, he blinked again and their was a different one, he blinked again and they were gone.
He eventually fully woke up to see Pandora standing over him. As soon as he was conscious she was pulling him into a hug, much gentler than Sirius'.
"You big idiot." She mumbled into his shoulder. Regulus just smiled.
Pandora pulled back and all the anger drained from her eyes once she looked at him. It was enough to make Regulus feel guilty. That look, a mix of concern and relief and hurt.
"Did you really think i could forget you? Or not miss you?" Pandora says, just above a whisper.
"I'm sorry." He said, sincerely.
Pandora picked up his hand. She took Regulus' bracelet off and slid it back onto his wrist. Regulus stared at it, not wanting to look back up at Pandora. He didn't think he had the physical strength to cry right now. Or explain how he got that to her. That would be a story for another time. Maybe.
"I think there are some other people who would like to see you," Pandora said. "I'll be in the waiting room, kay?"
"Mhm" he managed. Pandora walked out and Barty came in right after. Regulus braced himself. He was quite sure Barty might actually punch him in the face. He may as well have, since Barty walks in and immediately starts yelling.
"You bitch! What ever happened to getting through it together? Did that mean nothing to you? Why would you- What could have possibly made you think that was a smart idea? We- I thought you were going to die, Regulus." Barty croaked.
"'missed you too" is all Regulus says. All he can say, really. He'll let Barty yell at him another time, when everything feels a bit more real. Barty's face crumbles and Regulus receives his third hug of the day. This was a new record.
Remus came in next to lecture him, Dorcas also lectured him, Evan also lectured him, but only for a minute or so. The last person to visit him was James.
"Er, hey." James said.
Regulus burst out laughing at this. He was a bit out of it with all the medicine, so at the moment this was just about the funniest thing in the world.
James was clearly confused, but pleased to make him laugh. Regulus settled down after a minute, And James came and sat in one of the chairs.
"I know you don't really care about me, but I still wanted to visit. It was weird not having you around. Not just that Sirius was like, destroyed, but it just felt off to not have you making sarcastic remarks every time i greeted you or literally always being in the library every time i had to go there. Sorry, i'm rambling. I just wanted you to know.. we're all glad you're okay."
Regulus stared at James for one, two, three seconds before promptly bursting into tears. He isn't completely sure why, and looking back on it, it was probably just the medicine, but at the moment knowing that even James had missed him was just about the saddest and best thing in the world.
James had been confused, trying to comfort him but not really knowing exactly what for. Eventually, a doctor came in and told James the medicine was probably messing with his emotions. The doctor also told Regulus he would be able to leave on Monday. This made Regulus realize he was going to have to deal with his parents at one point or another.
"Sirius," Regulus said, still not quite able to form full sentences.
"I'll go get him." James quickly said, walking out of the room. Sirius came in and the doctor left, probably to give them some privacy.
"I don't want to go back there" Regulus whispered, wide eyed. Did they get that note? Did they even know what had happened? Or did they think he ran away? In any scenario, it wasn't looking good for him.
Sirius looked so upset by the scared look on Regulus' face, before his expression shifted to resentment. For their parents, Regulus was hoping.
"You won't have to. I promise." Sirius said
Regulus was tearing up again. He hated feeling vulnerable, but he couldn't find it in him to care at the moment.
"I missed you." Regulus said. Not just those two weeks, but those two years. All that time.
"I missed you too," Sirius croaked. "And i'm sorry."
"I'm sorry too." Regulus said, and they were hugging again. Wow, he was on a roll.
Regulus knew they would still have to talk more. Everything wasn't magically okay just because they hugged. They would probably argue at one point or another, and their relationship had a lot of work to be done, but that could wait. For now, this was all that mattered. Regulus had Sirius and Sirius had Regulus. But this time, Sirius wasn't going anywhere.
They had been through hell and back, but at the end of the day, they were brothers. Always brothers.