prologue
Most writers start with the mornings, it’s the easiest way to begin. The simplest too. The one that makes the most sense, chronologically anyways.
It was nearing dinner time.
The couch was old. It was a plain dull red thing. By some unholy miracle the couch seemed to smell as bad as it looked, as if an army of mice had raised entire families in the interior. Almost permanently was a haze of dust that hovered over the couch like dark storm cloud, and when you sat on it, it moaned and groaned in all the wrong places as if it were to fall apart at any moment, one wrong move and the whole thing would collapse. And of course, the mysterious stains. There were two. The first was along the armrest, which was on the left side, the right didn’t have one. It was a faded yellow with jagged cracks that formed half arsed constellations, probably a bleach stain or something of a similar corrosivity. The second was large across its back and a creased brown, like a giant partially healed scab that was continuously picked at. The stains probably had meaningful stories behind them, positive or negative, possibly humorous, possibly mournful.
Who knows?
It didn’t belong to any of the people currently in the house.
It didn’t belong to Regulus Black.
“He’ll be here soon.”
“You’ve said that four times in the last hour.”
Neither party spoke for a brief moment.
Normally Regulus liked the quiet, he thrived in it actually. Ever since he was young, he did his best work in the deathly silence, a silence so loud that you could hear spiders crawling across walls, and the tick of the grandfather clock on the bottom floor. The type of silence that came from the world, the type of silence you could drown in.
“I don’t understand why I am here.”
Regulus felt sick.
“You are required to stay with a legal guardi-”
“I turn 18 in June.”
“It is not June, Mr Black.”
“I’ll stay in the boarding house.”
“You do not have access to funds to be able to pay for boarding.”
“Excuse me-”
“It is standard procedure. You must-”
“What about-”
“You must stay with a legal guardian, and your brother is your emergency contact and the only immediate family member who was willingly to take you in.”
'The only immediate family member who was willingly to take you in'.
Regulus felt sick.
This woman, could he call her a woman (she sounded like a government robot), wouldn’t budge. And he will admit he prefers her succinct, professional tone over some empathetic fool asking him question after question, prodding at him to open up and have a conversation because it’s a ‘healthy way to heal’.
None of this bullshit was healthy.
At this point he’d rather repeatedly stab himself in the eye than have to deal with his brother.
His brother.
The word, thatword, brother, only on paper, and only by blood.
Brother.
Regulus felt sick.
There were footsteps, Regulus could hear them.
One set was light and carefree, as if who ever the footsteps belonged to had spent the day at the beach and was walking back to the car. Worn out, tired, but a blissful happiness that only arises at certain occasions.
Regulus wishes his footsteps could sound like that.
The second set he recognised. They were his own. You can’t grow up the way they grew up and not have footsteps like that. Careful and scared, the footsteps that know every creak in the floorboards, every dip in the stairs. The footsteps that knew if you stepped in the wrong place, your back would be sore for days and your mouth would taste metallic from biting your tongue so hard.
Regulus knew that, as hard as his brother might try to disguise it, that’s something that never goes away.
The two sets of footsteps reach the door, the keys fumble in unsteady hands, and as the door pushes open Regulus feels sick.
“Reggie.”