Scar Tissue

James was woken up by a loud-pitched ringing. It carried on for a few seconds, untouched, before the noise forced him to open his eyes. He got his bearings as the room cleared into focus. The sound was coming from the other side of the bed. He nudged Regulus beside him, momentarily mourning the loss of his almost angelic, sleeping expression. 

“The phone’s ringing.” he murmured sleepily, nudging the other boy again. 

Without opening his eyes, Regulus extended a hand towards the bedside table, fumbling about until he found the phone. 

“What?”

James could make out the voice on the other line - Barty - talking rapidly.

“Wait, slow down.” Regulus interrupted, “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“I said,” the other boy repeated, this time clearly enough for James to hear it, “Your darling mother has decided to grace us with her presence.”

“Shit.” Regulus looked at him with an expression of evenly mixed dread and disgust. James gave him a sympathetic look in return. 

Regulus sighed, passing a hand over his face, “Okay, I’m on my way.”

“Come quickly.” Barty’s voice sounded on edge, “She’s picked a fight about the couches three times Reg. I’m tired of hearing about how cheap and short-lasting the material looks.”

“Just… just keep her busy.” Regulus was holding the phone to his ear as he hopped clumsily into his pants.

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Talk to her about the weather or something.”

“It’s LA. It’s sunny every day of the fucking year.”

Regulus rolled his eyes, “Just make sure Pandora doesn’t pour coffee over her again.” 

James gave the boy a quick kiss as he hurriedly collected the rest of his things.

“No promises.” was the reply before Regulus hung up.

“You okay?” he asked the other boy as he made his way towards the door.

Regulus looked at him like he didn’t even know where to begin.

“Just call me later.” James nodded.

Regulus smiled, a bit nervous, before closing the door behind him. 

Fuck.

Fuck.

James had never met Walburga Black, though he didn’t know what he would do if he did. He didn’t even know how to organise his thoughts when it came to Sirius and Regulus’ mother - although the term ‘satan incarnate’ certainly came to mind. Other than that it was just a mess of tangled rage. 

James didn’t know how to feel because, on some level, he simply didn’t understand how a mother couldn’t love their child. He didn’t get it. Couldn’t conceptualise it. He knew that was mostly because his own mother was nothing short of an angel, but still.

It made sense to him that maybe some people’s display of love was hurtful, how a mom could show twisted affection. That some people’s love wasn’t worth having. The way that Sirius had described his childhood, it seemed that that was the case for Regulus; Walburga did love him, it was just that her love was covered in barbed wire. But Sirius… it seemed that something had snapped within her when he was very young and she had just stopped loving him. 

James had grown up around fucked up families. Even before Sirius there was Marlene, and before Marlene there were stories you heard from the neighbourhood of children with bruises, dads that didn't come back or mothers who had cps called on them. He understood that families were messy, he understood why you would leave one behind. But deep down, on a really fundamental, almost atomic level, he just didn’t get the whole thing. Family had always been everything to him. It was how he had been brought up. His family was huge and, sure, some of them had flaws that you wouldn’t really deal with if you weren’t related, but you still loved them. They would take a bullet for you, because that was just what family did.

So, on many levels, he simply didn’t understand the Blacks. He didn’t understand how someone could wake up and choose to treat their child that way. He computed the logical steps as to why they behaved that way, but James just never got people who didn’t try to be the best version of themselves they could. So he didn’t have any respect for fully grown adults who still decided to be awful. Call him spoilt for affection, or naive, but there was simply a mental block there. 

His mind was still whirring as he pulled up to the recording studio, churning out thoughts in his head. He was probably just too loved as a child to understand families that were broken in that way. Sometimes he hated it, how he couldn’t really help the others, couldn’t understand, but Sirius had always said that he’d liked that about him, that he didn’t make excuses for people. Besides, it wasn’t as if he wasn’t fucked up in other ways - he had his own strengths too, he supposed. 

Walking into the common room, James was greeted by a huddled up Marlene, who was curled into the corner of one of the couches around a mug, reading something with headphones in. James hadn’t seen much of the others in the past few weeks, but that always was the routine around that time of the year. 

She looked fine - as fine as one could look on their first day back after the anniversary of their ex’s death. There was colour in her face, at least. James had been on edge the entire week, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for something to explode. It usually did. There wasn’t anything bad about it, it was just how Marlene operated. She felt everything deeply. James was the same. 

She looked up as he walked in, throwing him a smile and taking off her headphones. James smiled instinctively at the sight. He was always slightly in love with all his friends. 

“You okay?”

James gave her a flat smile, “Got woken up to the wonderful news that one Walburga Black is in town.”

The other girl visibly baulked.

“Yeah.”

James picked up a mug from one of the cabinets and put on the coffee machine. Marlene got up and threw herself on the counter behind him. 

“You know,” she began, “I’m starting to think that maybe the world knew that I needed a little pick-me-up.”

James raised an eyebrow in question.

“I think today is the day that I beat the shit out of Walburga Black.” she announced.

James snorted, “Get in line.”

“Are you not a gentleman? Do ladies not go first or something like that?” she started waving around the spoon that she was using to eat a pot of yoghurt she had taken out of the fridge. 

“I am just protecting you from unladylike behaviour.” James defended himself, “You can’t besmirch our good name.”

Marlene flipped him off in response. James was interrupted from his reply by the sound of someone walking into the room. 

“Hey.” Sirius smiled. It wasn’t cold, per se, but it wasn’t warm. It wasn’t the smile Sirius usually reserved for him.

“Hey.” James replied. 

He looked back to catch Marlene’s pained eyes. 

I hate being around this. 

Their uncanny ability to communicate without speaking developed in their teenage years, back when they needed quick looks and getaways. 

I don’t know what to do. 

Talk to him! 

How? About what?

The other girl rolled her eyes, You’re breaking up the band, Yoko. 

“Hey… Sirius?”

The other boy turned from where he was putting some bread in the toaster.

“I found out this morning,” James continued, “That, umm…” he caught Marlene’s eyes again. She was looking at him like he was the stupidest man alive. Okay, so maybe he shouldn’t have opened his mouth, “Your mom’s in town.”

Sirius dropped the piece of bread in his hand. His face was completely unchanged, like the information was still being processed, “How do you know?”

James didn’t think the answer was going to make him feel much better, “Ummm… I was with Regulus when he found out.”

Sirius just nodded, “Okay.”

James didn’t know what else to say. He wasn’t good at tip-toeing, “...okay?”

Sirius continued nodding, looking at the other boy but not really looking at him, “Yeah. It’s…it’s whatever.”

That was the thing about Sirius. He didn’t really explode like James or Marlene did. Yeah, sure, he bottled things up so tightly that small things set him off. But he was insanely good at pushing the big things down, at blocking any sort of mental response. James would usually help him with that. He just… he just couldn’t, now.

“We should key her car or something.” Marlene stepped in, trying for a casual tone as she sipped her coffee. 

“Nah.” Sirius shook his head, taking the proposal seriously, “The driver also has training as a bodyguard.”

“I think I could take him.” James shrugged. 

Sirius tutted, a small smile playing on his face, “Maurice has a black belt in Judo and Karate.”

“Maurice isn’t gonna know what hit him.”

“To be fair,” Marlene pointed out, “Maurice doesn’t sound like the name of someone who is very scary.”

“Or tall.” James added. 

“Maurice is like six foot seven.” Sirius clarified. 

“Okay, but what’s the use in muscle if you could be outsmarted in a battle of wits?” James pointed out.

The other boy looked back at him, unimpressed, “Well, if you’re his opponent, I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“Rude.”

“Besides,” Sirius waved a hand, “Maurice almost went to Princeton when he was younger until his mom got sick and he had to stay back and take care of her. It was actually quite sad.”

Marlene looked at him with a completely baffled expression, “How the fuck do you know so much about Maurice?”

James laughed. That was the thing about them three; being together was as easy as breathing. Slipping into conversation was like slipping into a well-oiled machine. It would have taken effort to make them not work. 

Marlene’s tone turned more serious than before, “Hey, do you wanna talk about it?”

Sirius sighed, “I don’t really know what I want. I just… I don’t know.”

Marlene caught James’ eye, giving him a meaningful look. 

Jumping off the counter, she said “I’m off to go stare at myself in the mirror or something for like an hour.”

James snorted, “Trying to make sure you look pretty for Dorcas?”

The other girl sighed dramatically, “If you had an ounce of my beauty, James, you’d understand that it takes a lot of time and maintenance.”

“Yeah, I don’t get that.” James smiled, “my beauty just seems to come naturally to me.”

Marlene returned a sickly sweet grin, “That’s because all of your beauty comes from within.”

She winked at him before walking out of the room, leaving James and Sirius in a sort of stilted silence. James leant against the counter, sipping his drink as the other boy rummaged about, making himself another slice of toast and turning on the coffee machine. 

James didn’t really know how to break the silence, how to say what he wanted to say. He never had to think around Sirius before - he wasn’t good at putting things delicately. Sirius never told him to calm down, told him that he was too much or that he overwhelmed the other boy. Sirius never really got sick of him, and most people did. James felt the other boy’s absence like hot magma in his lungs.

They weren’t supposed to be like this. This wasn’t right.

The ache he felt in his chest gave him a spark of courage, “Sirius, I want to talk about this.”

The other boy turned around, expression blank, “About what?”

“About us, about what I can do to fix this.”

Sirius sighed, leaning back on the counter opposite him, “I don’t know what you can do to fix this.”

“I just… there has to be something. I can’t…” James honestly felt like he was going to cry as he finally let out what he had been thinking for weeks, “I can’t be like this with you. I don’t… I don’t know how to live like this. I tried giving you space and time but I don’t know how much more space and time to give you until you realise you don’t want me back.”

Sirius’ blue eyes looked back at him, genuinely upset at seeing James like this, “I - I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to tell me what’s wrong. I want you to tell me what you’re thinking. I want to know how you feel about Regulus and I. Just say it all. I don’t care if it’s mean-”

“I don’t have anything mean to say.” the other boy shrugged, sounding small, “I know this may not be the right thing to say, but this isn’t about you. It’s not even really about him. It’s about me. It’s a problem with how I’m wired.”

“There’s nothing wrong with how you’re wired.” James replied, feeling the sentiment within his bones. 

Sirius looked around, and it was clear he was trying to find a way to express how he felt. 

“Look, Regulus and I? We’re not like normal brothers. It’s never been like that with us. Everything good that happens to him - I know it makes me a bad person - but I can’t just be fully happy about it. Something about it just hurts. It’s always been a competition for love with us, for who could be more worthy of our parents’ love. They turned us against each other, really. 

“And I thought I’d tried my best to grow out of it, you know?” the other boy was pacing now, “I thought that inviting him to come out to LA, for us to help him with his band - you know, I thought that was a step in the right direction. But I feel like I’ve just been knocked all the way back.

“You were mine. And I know that’s stupid and I know that’s immature and cruel but you were my person. And the idea of having to share my person - of having to share anything, really - with him… it just sucks.”

He stopped pacing, looking up at James now, his voice a bit broken, his eyes a bit hidden, “I can’t compete with him. And I don’t want to, not really. So he wins. And I just have to take a step back. Because I really don’t want to get in the way of you two. And I just… I know I want to. So that’s that. And I’m sorry it sucks but I really think it’s for the best-”

“For the best?” James interrupted, brain whirring and alarm bells ringing, “For the best?”

James could lose Sirius? Like, lose him forever? 

“Sirius, I can’t function without you - I don’t want to function without you.” James’ breathing started to feel erratic, “If - if it’s a choice between you or him I choose you.”

Sirius’ eyes went wide. 

“James, I don’t want you to choose.” he responded in much the same way you speak to a frightened animal.

Regulus gave colour to the world, made his heart skip several beats, made his tummy feel funny, but James simply couldn’t breathe without Sirius. He would just have to find another reason to get up in the morning, because he didn’t think he would be able to get over losing the boy in front of him. It just wouldn’t be possible. There was a constant buzzing in James’ head that only went silent around Sirius. He was the first person he looked for in a crowded room. It wasn’t even friendship between them, not really, It was something else. They were like two body parts, attached to the same person. He wasn’t a friend, he was more like a presence. Something he thought he would always have.

“I choose you.” James repeated, nodding.

“James, stop.” Sirius repeated, more gravely, “Don’t make me the reason you hurt Regulus. Or yourself.”

The other boy shook his head. He didn’t know what to do, or what to say. All he knew was that he wanted to fix this.

“I just…” James shrugged, “I never thought that I would be the one to cause you pain.”

“You never are.” Sirius replied, almost in a whisper, “You never could be. It isn’t you. It’s her. It’s my dad. It’s them. It would never be you.”

“So what can I do?” James pleaded, “If you need me to wake up every day and tell you how much I love you then I will. I will do that. Because I love you so much. I love you so much that I can’t imagine a world without you. Did you know I could barely sleep the first night we met? I was just so excited to have met you.

“You’re so, so, so important to me and you always will be. Even if you decide to run away to a fucking Island and never see me again, I’ll fill up diaries just writing down things I want to tell you. I want you to know that how much I love Regulus has nothing to do with how much I  love you. Ever.” 

Sirius looked back, speechless, “I… I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything.” James was quick to respond, “Just let me know when you need me to make another Jane Austen speech for you and I will.”

Sirius looked at him bashfully, “I feel silly.”

“Well I don’t. How much I love you is never silly.”

Sirius smiled, his eyes filling up with the usual warmth he reserved for James. 

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

****

Regulus stormed out of the house on shaky legs, calling a cab to take him back to the apartment. Waking up to the news that your insane bitch of a mother was in town wasn’t exactly the best start to the day. Regulus didn’t really have it in him to sort out the whirlpool of feelings in his head, so he simply chose to ignore them. He was good at that. 

It had been a nice evening, too. James had ordered from a Chinese takeout spot that was beginning to become one of their favourites. Because they were one of those couples who had that. Favourites. As in ‘let’s order the usual?’ favourites. The thought of it made a warm feeling fill up his chest. 

The warm feeling soon dissipated as he stepped out of the car and into the apartment building which he knew currently contained his mother. He should’ve known this was coming. You didn’t ignore Walburga Black, she ignored you. 

He could hear her shrill voice before he even entered the apartment. Swinging the door open before he could even get a chance to think about how he felt, he was greeted by the sight of Dorcas rolling her eyes at his mother. 

“Don’t you roll your eyes at me.”

“You can’t control where my eyes go.”

“Your parents really didn’t teach you manners. I don’t know why they let you into that school in the first place.”

Before anyone could say anything else, Regulus made his presence known by slamming the door behind him. 

Walburga turned to him, and she looked almost the same as the last time he had seen her. There were more wrinkles on her face, but apart from that she still had her wavy black hair and stern, icy blue eyes, arms crossed in front of her. 

“Regulus.” was all she said, with no discernable emotion. 

“Mother.” he replied in greeting, shoving any hint of emotion he had into the depths of his mind. 

Because, sure, once upon a time, Regulus had lived with this woman. He had learnt to hide himself so well that he was sometimes still trying to find where he had gone all those years ago. He had become armoured, silent, abiding until he couldn’t anymore and then never looking back. Sometimes, he got tired of trying to be strong all the time. It was a strange feeling to feel that you were at once too vulnerable and weak and too cold and detached. 

“Let’s skip the pleasantries.” Walburga began, “I’ve come to let you know that your father is very ill. He probably won’t make it.”

Regulus’ heart skipped a beat, but his body did not betray him further than that.

“Wouldn’t you like to see him at least once before he goes?”

Regulus blinked, “Sorry?”

“Well, you know, since you ran away and threw away everything he had ever given you, wouldn’t you at least do him the courtesy of seeing him before he dies?” his mother fixed him with an expectant look. 

Regulus tried to backpedal, confused, “Since when has he been ill? What happened?”

Walburga gave a smile. It was cruel. Cold. “Well, you would know if you returned any of our calls.”

Regulus rolled his eyes, somewhat proud at this small act of defiance in the face of his mother, “It’s been years, mother, and I haven't picked up your calls once. Doesn’t that send some sort of sign?”

Her mother sighed, “Look, we’ve let you do all this… stupidity, but don’t you think it's time to come home now? Are you really going to be a musician all your life?”

Regulus shrugged, “Probably, yes.”

Walburga gave an incredulous laugh, “After all we gave you, you’re going to throw it away on… on this?”

Walburga wasn’t wrong, and a guilty feeling started clawing its way up his throat. They had paid more money into Regulus’ education than most families saw in a lifetime, and he threw it all away. So Walburga wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t exactly right, either. She was somewhere in between, like everything in his whole life. 

Everything was just a fucking limbo.

People loved you, but they didn’t say it. People hated you, but they didn’t say that either. They had expectations, but they wouldn’t tell you what they were until you failed them. They told you to climb through hoops, but they never believed you could make it in the first place. Nothing was ever solid. Regulus grew up on shifting sand.

Well, nothing was ever solid until he met Dorcas.

Regulus built walls for himself. He let others encase him in rocks and marble and things that would never move. Now that he knew what it felt like, to be loved in a simple way, he didn’t want to go back. The thought of it made him nauseous. 

So, he channelled the courage he had gathered all those years ago when he ran away from home. Except this time he wasn’t running. He wasn’t going anywhere. He was standing his ground. She was leaving. 

“Please close the door on your way out.” was all he said. 

****

“Sirius, can I talk to you?”

Sirius looked up to see his brother looking back down at him. The common room was empty in the mid-afternoon lull, save for just him and James. 

“Sure.”

Regulus looked completely devoid of emotion. It was how you knew there was something seriously wrong. Regulus put his guard down when he was happy, free to contradict, free to put up a fuss. When he was on edge, it went as far as it could go; Regulus tried to turn himself into a grain of sand, into something so small that no one could complain about its presence. Those were the two modes Sirius had known him in when he was younger. There was never really much room for anything else in that house. 

James got up, shooting him a look before leaving them. 

“Everything okay?” Sirius asked as the other boy sat down.

Regulus didn’t look at him. Instead, he kept his gaze firmly on the ground.

“I don’t want to let them win.” he said, simply, “Mother and father, I mean.”

Sirius tried to understand, “In what way?”

The other boy sighed, “Well, they broke us, if you think about it.”

Sirius didn’t know what to say. He never really did, when it came to their parents. He didn’t understand what they had done to him. In some ways, he guessed, he didn’t really want to. It was easier to adapt, sometimes, than to try to untangle. 

“Father is dying.” Regulus spoke again, “That’s what mother came to tell me.”

And yet, despite both Sirius and Regulus running away, their mother only thought to tell one of them about this. Sirius knew why, of course, but he guessed he had forgotten the pain of being confronted with it; Regulus was a kid who made a mistake, a kid who had potential. Sirius never had any of that. He was born broken, he guessed. No potential to see here, folks. 

“And I just thought,” the other boy continued, “That they could be blown off the face of the planet and yet they’d still be alive. Because they’d be in our heads, in everything we do.”

Sirius understood. Of course he did. 

“You can’t just undo that, Reg.”

“Yeah, but doesn’t it sometimes feel like we keep them alive?” he looked back at him, then, “Like we can’t look at each other without them being there, too? Doesn’t it sometimes feel like we’re not trying? Like I moved out here to LA to get closer with you and yet there still feels like a wall of broken glass between us.”

Sirius wished he had the answers to give him, like when they were younger. He wished he knew Regulus a bit more. He wished he could let go of everything that he felt when he was younger. He wished Regulus could, too. 

But he supposed that these things were not that easy, as everyone had told him time and time again. Maybe Sirius had to become comfortable with that, with the difficulty of it all. He had spent his whole life avoiding things that felt difficult and messy. For Regulus, though, he’d stop running. 

“I’m sorry about James. I really am.”

Sirius could see the genuine apology in the other boy’s eyes, “You don’t have to say sorry.”

“I know but I want to.” he nodded, “I knew how it would make you feel and I did it anyway. I couldn’t help myself.”

Sirius gave him a small smile, “James has that effect on people.”

Regulus returned it with a smile of his own. 

“Can we try?” he asked, “Like, really try? Like every second of every day of our lives? Because I’m tired of this.”

Sirius felt exhausted.

“Yeah, I would like that.” Sirius replied, and a soothing warmth spread in his chest.