kill me still
“You came back for me.”
Regulus spoke these words so softly, so simply. Sirius, without prompting, passed his cigarette to his little brother. Regulus took it gratefully, doing his best not to tap ash onto Sirius’s shirt.
“Of course I did Reggie,” Sirius said.
“But…why keep it a secret? Why hide yourself?”
“I didn’t want you to be angry with me.”
Regulus laughed nervously, “Sirius. You’re alive. You survived getting kidnapped by pirates. Why would I be angry at you?”
“Because I wasn’t kidnapped.”
Sirius took the cigarette from Regulus’s suddenly stiff fingers and pulled a mouthful, his eyes small against the wind, his brow tight with pain. Regulus was as still as a corpse. He couldn’t bring himself to lift his head, to break the moment, to shatter his initial feelings of relief and gratitude.
This was the truth James had promised would hurt. This was the truth Remus didn’t think he was ready for.
He wasn’t. He wasn’t ready at all.
Sirius shifted, smoking with an intensity that revealed his plain and utter terror with the percariousness of the situation.
“About a month before I…was gone, I started going into town more. In the evenings. Most days I couldn’t stand just being in the house and Mother managed to restrict my movements and tug my leash even fucking tighter than it already was. So, on the nights I didn’t take you to train, I went out on my own. There was this one traveller’s pub closest to the bordering neighborhoods and the barkeep was nice about letting me stay and hang around. It was so stupid really, to risk it. I never did anything there but smoke and chatter a bit. But I needed those nights, Reggie. I needed to call something my own again. I was bound to get caught soon enough, but I couldn’t help it. I just kept on going.”
Sirius exhaled heavily, “One night when I went over to the pub like normal, it was closed. Chairs up and lights off. No explanation. But when I peeked in through the window, there was someone rummaging around the back of the bar. A thief. I meant to turn back, find another place to warm up, maybe. The problem was, he saw me too. And before I could stop him, he pulled me into the pub.”
Sirius paused, smiling, “And that’s when I met Remus.”
Regulus gaped. The wind howled in his ears, but every word coming out of Sirius’s mouth was crystal clear and inarguably genuine.
“That thieving little twat was robbing the place and thought I would rat. He held me up with his sabre, for fucks sakes! Luckily, he decided to take mercy on my poor soul and let me off. I freaked and left.”
“When I came back the next night, he was there again. This time, sitting at my usual spot at the bar. Waiting for me.”
“I won’t torture you with all the lovey dovey stuff. The point is, I realized that I would have rather been caught, a hundred times over, and I wouldn’t have cared as long as I got to spend my nights with him. He was never early, he wanted to watch the sunset from the peer, you see, and sometimes we missed each other, but I always went and I always stayed and I happily waited because- Christ; I was in love with him. When told me why he really tried to rob the pub the night we met, sent on a pirating mission, of all things, while his ship was being fixed in Dorset, I thought he was trying to pull one on me. But then he offered to take me back with him, to give me a place in the crew…”
Sirius’s face was glowing with the happiness of the memory.
“Remus gave me choice. For the first time in my goddamn life, I was given some semblance of autonomy, the barest glimpse of a future that I chose for myself with a person that I chose to love. I was so afraid, so mind-numbingly afraid, of losing him. I feared being alone more than I feared Mother. And I never thought that would be true. With all she did to me, what she did to you, what she made me watch…every time, I just thought to myself; This is the worst that can happen. But I was wrong. Losing Remus, that would have fucking killed me from the inside out. It would kill me still.”
Regulus’s face was damp with tears and rain.
“The note that was left. The ransom,” said Regulus, “You wrote it.”
“I did,” Sirius paused thoughtfully, “I didn’t want you to be hurt, for you to feel like I abandoned you.”
“But you did. Abandon me,” Regulus bit out.
“But I came back,” Sirius begged, more to himself, “I came back the second that James announced we had the opportunity. I waited every goddamn day for the news that we were going in the right direction, that the sea was just in our favor for a safe passage to Dorset. I told James about my plan, showed him your picture. I told the crew not to say my name in front of you because I wanted to be the one to tell you all this-”
“So everyone knew…but me.”
“Reggie,” Sirius’s voice was thick with sorrow, “I don’t expect you to forgive me. And I would never ask for you to just forget anything happened. I was a shit brother. I know that. I just wanted you to understand. I hope, if anything, you can understand, that I needed to take care of me before I took care of you; you wouldn’t have ever gotten out of that house if I hadn’t done what I did. Please understand that, Reggie, please.”
Sirius was giving him an out, Regulus realized. He had the space to take Sirius’s truth, for whatever it was worth, and walk away. A dark undercurrent ran under the surface of his relief, a deeper part of him that wanted to be furious at Sirius. For leaving or for lying, Regulus didn’t know, couldn’t pick. What Regulus learned about Sirius meant nothing. What he learned about himself meant all the difference
Regulus was tired of living with hate in his heart.
He was tired of bearing the guilt of Sirius’s leaving, thinking that he was the flint that struck fire, he wasn’t worth staying for, wasn’t worth training, wasn’t worth protecting. But that wasn’t it at all. James said so himself; Regulus was wanted. He was wanted, on this ship, with these people. With his brother.
If Regulus let the rot of his grief spread over and infect all he had built on Lady Lily, it would be the only truly hateful thing he will ever do.
“I understand.”
Sirius’s tears fell free, “Reg-”
Regulus hugged his brother for the first time in years. The arms that came around him were thicker, stronger, but Sirius’s all the same. Different, but no longer out of reach.
“You came back. That’s all that matters.”
Silence sluiced by the quickening rain.
“Reggie-”
“Sirius, I swear to God, if you keep trying to make this about you-”
“No, Reg, look.” Sirius leapt up and peered over the railing. He pointed into the murky horizon. Regulus followed Sirius’s eyeline.
Cascading over the rough waves was another ship. A long, elegant vessel with dark green sails and a figurehead of a woman painted with bicolored hair, her eyes glaring and defiant, her body thrust back. There was a wooden bow clenched in her fingers. Distantly, Regulus could see that the false arrow was carved in the shape of a constellation, thin rods of wood spidering off and tipped with stars.
It takes a Black to find a Black, James had said.
Sirius had found Regulus. And now they both found Narcissa’s Revenge, charging at Lady Lily and armed for war.