They haven’t been here long when Sirius inevitably starts up, dragging himself further towards his brother. He smells nice, forest-y. Regulus reckons he smells something like winter bitterness and inexcusable evil himself.
“Reggie,” he acknowledges, adjusting himself half-drunkenly next to Regulus, his presence heavy: demanding attention even wordlessly: even accidentally. Regulus says nothing, just rolls his eyes, wishing a million times that someone would let them out of this room.
But Sirius can’t keep his damn mouth shut. “‘You suppose we’re brothers in every lifetime?” Sirius says, albeit a bit weakly. His eyes are closed, he’s not expecting an answer.
And Regulus wasn’t expecting the question. But it turns him bitter, like a hot rotting, charring his flesh until he looks and feels something more like a predator than a boy. And the question repeats itself in the silence, echoing itself off of his pain, and Regulus just wishes with everything in him that Sirius could somehow be capable of thought, of restraint, of shame. In every lifetime? And a thousand answers flicker through Regulus’ thought, tugging at his memory, all different, but all variations of the same answer: why not this one?
And another answer, one Regulus feels in the heat of his chest, one he can’t comprehend apart from the closing sensation in his throat: a “yes”.
But Regulus just wants to be the big, bad one for once. He wants so badly to make Sirius understand that he’s powerful, he’s strong, he’s the fucking heir to the House of Black. So he gathers up that rotting feeling, and spits out his venom: “go ask James that question.”
And he watched his brother: watches as the words hit, deliberate. Something in his eyes changes, the grey of them going from something crystal and sharp to something deeper: something powdered, something drowning. And Regulus hates this, hates that he recognizes the heave in Sirius’ eyelids, the exhaust carved around his features: the face he sees in the reflection of his mirror every day.
Sirius’ eyes meet Regulus’ own, as if in search, perhaps scouring his face for some evidence that a real boy once lived here. “I’m not done loving you, Reg” he says, as if in confession.
Regulus might just be sick, then. Because Sirius doesn’t love him. Regulus gave up pretending he had to a long time ago. So Sirius really must be changed, really must be living a different life in that tower, away from his past. And Regulus just wants to grab him and show him what he is. That he can run away towards glittery red and gold dreams, but this: this is what he’s made up of. That if Regulus must be composed of poison then Sirius ought to be as well.
And Regulus, big bad Regulus, is once again eternally childlike beside his brother.
And maybe they’re both tired of the Black burden. Maybe that dark stain is all they have of each other anymore: all any of them have. Narcissa, Bellatrix, Andromeda; Sirius and Regulus. None of them quite knew the other, really, but they were the only ones who could understand what the other was. Born a Black. And no matter how hard some of them may run from that, it was intertwined with everything they were. And even if they didn’t talk, even if they became nothing to each other, Regulus and Sirius would always own that part of each other.
And Regulus knew that he wasn’t Sirius' first choice. And maybe he wasn’t Regulus’ first choice either, maybe it was fair. They weren’t an answer for each other anymore, just a rusted title of brotherhood. But despite the fact that it was the wrong choice for each other, it was all they really wanted. It was wrong, but it was what they wanted.