Fic: Rococo
Title: Rococo
Author: spessartine
Pairing: Regulus/Various, Sirius/Harry
Rating: R
Warnings: Hints at various nasty things including noncon and incest; Harry is probably a bit young.
A/N: Written as a response to two of xylodemon's request/bunny things: Five things in (or not in, I forget now!) Regulus' pensieve, and Sirius/Harry wallsex. Who knew they could be combined?
Breathe close upon the ashes,
It may be flame will leap;
Unclose the soft close lashes,
Lift up the lids, and weep.
Swinburne, from 'Rococo,'
One
This is the day, the first day. Regulus watches his mother's shaking, lilac-skinned hand dip the trembling quill, two taps on the rim of the inkwell, two taps, the pause, the scratch of the quill on parchment, her laboured breathing. Her signature spreads across the page, black and curliqued. Regulus clenches his fists behind his back. The house is empty but for him and his mother, and it is autumn, his birthday, and he has opened the windows to clear the air of her sickness, and dead leaves are drifting in: dead leaves skittering across the dusty lacquered floors like the empty shells of long-dead beasts; like the discarded carapaces of beetles.
His mother finishes with a stunted flourish and drops the quill. She folds the parchment in three and seals it with the signet ring on her bent forefinger. 'Yours now, Regulus,' she says, and laughs. Her arthritic hand clasps his jaw, her fingers curled like claws into his skin. He pries it away, ignores her hiss and whimper, and shoves her down into the chair. His hands on her shoulders seem too large, too precise and nimble: unnerving somehow.
'Yes,' he says quietly. 'Mine. Did you ever think things would end up like this? Did you ever wonder, mother?'
But his mother does not answer. She curls herself away from him and mutters under her breath, spiteful things, things she has not said since he and Sirius were little, and needed to be shocked with zealousness. Carefully, he tucks the parchment into the inside pocket of his robes and leaves her sitting at his dead father's desk, safe in the knowledge her joints are too stiff to let her rise and follow him. He stalks through the house, his house, trailing his finger through the sifting dust and scattering house elves before him. Even the echoes are deadened, as if the place is ready to welcome him as master rather than throwing about the sound of his footsteps from wall to wall.
In front of the great faded tapestry Regulus takes out his wand. He touches its tip to the threads, their colour all but worn to brown, between the R and the I of his brother's name. He does not say a thing aloud, merely stands there, still, for a moment, a muscle in his jaw flexing, his breath shuddering through him, juddering out of him through clenched teeth, until he opens his mouth and a noise escapes like a sob, like a stifled battle-cry, and brightness blooms at the tip of his wand, and smoke curls towards the ceiling, and his brother's name was never there, and his brother was never, was never.
***
Sirius is lying on his back on the huge polished dining table, his long hair trickling like water over its edge, his t-shirt pulled up to reveal his abdomen and its shifting muscles which tighten and twitch in time with the movement of his hand. His bare feet leave dirty prints on the pristine surface, and in his other hand the neck of a forgotten bottle sloshes whiskey onto the wood. The triangular slice of skin his open jeans reveal is white, damp, shadowed with hair leading down to where he's fisting his cock, fast and smooth and silent, faster as a flush creeps across his cheekbones and his open lips, his eyelids as they flutter shut.
He is silent too as he comes, and his face is blank, easy. Sirius licks a drop of it from his lip and pushes himself upright, still shuddering faintly. The bottle falls to the floor, but does not smash, and he ignores it. Its clamour bleeds into the echoes of the house. He rubs his callused hands over his face, and combs his fingers through his hair (its few strands of grey) and waits until his breathing slows once more. Eventually, he whispers, 'like that, did you?'
'Fuck, yeah,' says Harry, before he can stop himself.
Two
Summers they spent in the country, out of London's heat and grime and the stink of its noise and the sour bile smell of the river, and the scent like peat that hung in the air after dark. The house was a large turn of the century manor in Wiltshire, bulk like the prow of a ship, a stone ship jutting into morning mist, and the verdant verandas with their dew-licked ferns and potted hostas, their shaded spaces out of the sun and the evenings spent listening to the broaching fizz of gin and tonic and their mother's laughter rising and falling, and the murmured voices of men.
'Come with me,' says Sirius, and his palm against Regulus' wrist is damp. Regulus shrugs him off, goes back to his book, and lifts the fabric of his shirt away from his skin to let in the cool. It's evening. Lights are being lit in the house. Sirius' finger moves across the back of his neck, under his hair. 'Come on,' he says, 'I'll let you -'
Regulus snaps his book closed and goes inside, leaving his brother on the veranda, where moths are beginning to congregate. Bella is in the breakfast room reading a letter. 'Well hello, little Regulus,' she says, though he is six inches taller than her. 'Why aren't you off sucking Sirius' cock, or whatever it is you do?'
'I don't -' he begins, but she grabs his collar and pulls his face down level with hers. Her tongue licks across his lips, one broad slow warm stroke.
'I bet you do,' she whispers, pressing her breasts against him, 'I bet you crawl across to him and beg him to let you suck his cock. I bet you suck it until it's so hard, and then you sit on it and fuck yourself with it, and he doesn't even have to move you're so desperate for it.' She shudders against him, and her breath against his cheek smells of coffee and brandy. 'Have you let him fuck you, Regulus? Have you felt him inside you? I think you have, I think you love it, the pair of you so fucking pretty with your long hair and your eyes and your mouths open -'
Regulus kisses her, then. She chuckles into his mouth, deep and warm, but she parts her lips, and when he edges her backwards so he can press her against the table her hips are soft and the feel of her flesh against him, yielding and warm, makes him harden just a little. He kisses her until her breath as well as his own is beginning to quicken, and she keeps her eyes open all the time, boring into him, and then looking over his shoulder, and she gasps and shivers when he runs his fingers over her hardening nipple, but she's looking over his shoulder, behind him, and he knows then that his brother is there, watching.
His brother is always there. His brother is inescapable. His brother, dense and dark as something burnt, his gravity a black thing that draws everything in, and Regulus' orbit is decaying, decaying. He pulls away and rushes from the room.
***
Sirius rests his hands on the wall either side of Harry and dips his head so their faces are level, just about. Harry's gaze licks fire into his blood. 'Do you want me to kiss you?' he says. Harry's breath hitches, and he looks away. Sirius leans closer, and their bodies are almost touching, and he can feel the heat off Harry. 'I know you watch me, every fucking time. Why do you think I'm such a fucking exhibitionist?'
'Comes natural, I guess,' says Harry quietly, but he glances up into Sirius' eyes for a second, and the corners of his mouth twitch upward, slightly. It's enough for Sirius. He slams his body against Harry's and pushes their mouths together, slick red warmth with the glint of teeth clashing, and Harry clutches at his shirt and moans as Sirius pulls off his t-shirt and licks along his collarbone.
'I knew you fucking wanted it,' he mumbles against Harry's skin, mouth sliding across salt, burn and heat of muscle and bone beneath his lips. 'Little fucking slut, following me around like a bloody dog -' snort of laughter as his teeth graze Harry's abdomen '- every night the same, and then you creep off to your room and wank yourself dry. You think I don't know what name you're moaning, you little slut? You think I don't know how you want me to make you come?' And he takes Harry's cock into his mouth, and the sound Harry makes as Sirius pushes a finger inside him is low and desperate, ragged.
'I'll make you come, then,' he whispers, lips fluttering over the head of Harry's cock. Fingers are yanking at his hair desperately, but he ignores them and moves his mouth slowly, presses deeper with his fingers until Harry is yelling hoarsly for him to stop, for him to carry on, yelling in that broken voice. 'I'll fuck you, if you want,' Sirius whispers, and does not wait for an answer.
Three
'I'll fuck you, if you want,' Sirius whispers. His palm on the back of Regulus' neck is a point of heat, like the burning plane of Sirius forehead against his own. Regulus shuts his eyes and bows his head, but Sirius does not let go. He trails his finger down Regulus' nose, bridge to tip, and down onto his lips.
'I'm not -' Regulus starts, and Sirius begins to laugh, quiet and low. He presses his lips to Regulus' jaw and clasps his arms around Regulus' waist, shifting their bodies closer together, his breath stirring Regulus' hair. They're on the lawn, down by the blooming azaleas, rich tinge of summer on the air. He's always loved the smell, always. Now he smells it on the back of Sirius' neck.
And what was desire? What fabled heat stirred in him at that moment? Nothing he recognised, nothing aching at him, insistent as the growing dawn or the hot clasp of Sirius' body against his own. 'Please, Sirius, go back inside.' Quiet conversations of the birds. Sirius' hand on his chest pushing him back onto the neatly mown grass. His breath: 'Sirius, please,' and then the shock of Sirius' tongue trailing across the tender skin near his hip, his shirt pushed up a few inches, Sirius' fingers stroking his soft cock through his trousers.
Blush thuds into his cheeks, and he twists away, kicking his feet into turf. Sirius wraps his arms around Regulus' waist and says 'S'alright, Reg. I'm sorry.' But he does not let go.
***
'Did you miss him, after?' asks Harry. It's dark in the house, because no one has remembered to turn on the lights. Sirius crosses his arms behind his head and sniffs.
'My brother?' he says, voice still rough with not enough sleep. Harry nods beside him. He's lying close enough to touch, if Sirius wanted to, but he isn't touching. His hands fidget awkwardly like pale running spiders in the gloom. Sirius shrugs. 'Yeah,' he says. 'Sure. But I hadn't -' he stops and rubs a hand through his hair. 'I hadn't seen him for a year before it. We didn't really talk by then.'
'Oh,' says Harry. Without his glasses he looks younger than he is, perhaps, or perhaps he looks his age. Sirius turns his back and rolls onto his side. He wonders why the house smells familiar, suddenly, a shifting scent hard to trace, and he isn't listening, not really, as Harry says 'Must have been hard, being your brother.'
'Mmm,' says Sirius. 'Yeah.' He gets up and pulls on his trousers, tossing unfamiliar clothes over his shoulder to Harry and wandering out into the darkened entrance hall. Far above, light filters through a grimy stained-glass ceiling rose and plumbs the depths of the house, scuffing gently on the dull floor tiles. There's a draft coming up from the kitchen, where the tap drips it perpetual drip and the old black range gathers soot. His bare feet show flashes of their black soles as he goes down the stairs, and it's stronger here, the scent, laced through the air like smoke almost.
The back door is open. Out in the night time garden the azaleas are in bloom and beginning to fail, peach-coloured blossoms drooping flesh-pale in the moonlight.
Harry, standing by the kitchen door and uncertain in his pajama bottoms, watches as Sirius begins to laugh, a nasty low chuckle that makes him wish he understood. Sirius slams the door closed and says nothing for the rest of the night.
Four
Faded velvet and the petalled curl of rising smoke; the dark stain of spilled wine spreading, spreading over silver, and the air too hot to breathe, and his hair laid out like the burst of dark light that the sun leaves on shut eyes. Smeared and yielding cubes of turkish delight leave their sweetness on his lips, kohl its darkness at his eyes. Rings on his white fingers heavy and quiet against the goblet; candles spattering the rugs with white wax; the head that moves over his lap dipping, dipping, the wet heat sumptuous on his cock, the sigh blossoming on his lips, all of these things, all of them are pieces of what it is to be the eldest son of the House of Black.
It does not matter that he inherited the position, rather than being born to it. This means only that he earnt it. Regulus smiles and buries his fingers in the soft hair drifting over his lap, licks spilled wine from the corner of his mouth, and isn't it all spilling, isn't it all brim full with light and riches, too much, too much, and his blood heavy and quick roaring, that tongue against his cock, and the candle flames leaping up as his breath quickens are pulsing light, and he smiles, slow and hollow, and kicks over the candelabra with his foot, watching the flames spreading, watching them leap at the sumptuous hangings that glitter with exotic embroidery and precious stones.
His wand leaves glowing sigils in the air that twine to form strange shapes above him, keeping the flames at bay.
He throws back his head and laughs as he comes into Remus' mouth, both of them caught in the mouth of the fire, half swallowed in its roar.
***
'I did miss him,' Sirius blurts out, sweat beading on his upper lip, his head thrown back. Harry freezes.
'What?' he says, looking up. 'Christ, Sirius, not while -'
Sirius shakes his head and swallows weakly, urges Harry's head back down. It's raining, and evening, and soon the house will be full again, and this hinterland where time left them alone will end, and the dusk will set in, irrevocable. And he's grateful. How else would he have begun to say no? But - he's started saying it already, hasn't he? He has negated every nod of his head, every whispered fuck, yes with a turned back or a silence stretched out to breaking point. Harry's young. Harry will get over it.
Sirius' lips move, and only silence emerges, pale and secretive: I did.
Five
Regulus' fingers shake as they grasp the bottle; whiskey flows down his chin and soaks into his cuffs, errant sobs spill from his mouth. High smash of glass against the wall; his ragged rage echoing across the house. He rubs at his face with half-fisted hands, covers his eyes and staggers to the stairway. The house is filled with the smell of rotting fruit, and sour alcohol, and sweat; filled with the remnants of riches and souring light.
Regulus climbs, past the severed elf heads which leer from the wall at him, his feet heavy on each step, body thrummed with tears. At the top of the house he sinks to the dusty attic floor and spells the trapdoor shut. His voice is unsteady, and the incantation fails twice before he gets it right. Somewhere downstairs the one remaining house elf begins screaming in its high, reedy little voice. It's found the others, probably.
'Be quiet,' he yells, his voice breaking, 'be fucking quiet! Shut up, shut up. I can't -' There's quiet for a while, then a rhythmic banging.
A desperate voice is calling, 'Master Regulus, Master Regulus!' He hurls a stunning spell at the trapdoor, which rattles and sends up a cloud of dust. His face is crumpling, his voice curdling in his throat, oh god, oh fuck, I don't know what to, I don't know, I can't, oh fuck, fuck, please, I-
He raises his wand to his temple and yanks it away, streaming silver strands that tug at his mind, and are then released, flowing through the air at the tip of his wand, sliding down into the old pensieve and pooling there, harmless as water.
Regulus, breath aching out of him, stares down at the swirling memories. He doesn't know the spell, and has brought out other memories, too: bits of nothing and everything that are his life. But it's there, or a part of it: it's there, out of him, oh god, out of him at last. A face resolves itself in the penseive. Regulus shuts his eyes and raises his wand to his temple once more.
***
Sirius is up in the attic again. A patch of liquid silver light flickers on the angled roof above him, and where he sits, crosslegged in the crook of the ceiling, shadow hides him, lets out only the faint blue glint of his eyes. On the floor in front of him is a small stone dish.
It's dark, but there are smeared tear-tracks in the dirt on his cheeks. He presses the ball of his thumb to his lips and sits there quietly as the dark minutes slip past, and downstairs Harry is wondering where he is and if it's alright to call him, and in the garden the wind is picking up and scattering withered blossoms across the lawn. Sirius closes his eyes, and does not look into the pensive. He's already looked, knows what lives there, what memories haunt it.
A quiet voice in the darkness spills from the bowl, and says, 'I'll fuck you, if you want.' And there's a boy there lying among dying azaleas on his back, trying to get away, forever.
Author: spessartine
Pairing: Regulus/Various, Sirius/Harry
Rating: R
Warnings: Hints at various nasty things including noncon and incest; Harry is probably a bit young.
A/N: Written as a response to two of xylodemon's request/bunny things: Five things in (or not in, I forget now!) Regulus' pensieve, and Sirius/Harry wallsex. Who knew they could be combined?
Breathe close upon the ashes,
It may be flame will leap;
Unclose the soft close lashes,
Lift up the lids, and weep.
Swinburne, from 'Rococo,'
One
This is the day, the first day. Regulus watches his mother's shaking, lilac-skinned hand dip the trembling quill, two taps on the rim of the inkwell, two taps, the pause, the scratch of the quill on parchment, her laboured breathing. Her signature spreads across the page, black and curliqued. Regulus clenches his fists behind his back. The house is empty but for him and his mother, and it is autumn, his birthday, and he has opened the windows to clear the air of her sickness, and dead leaves are drifting in: dead leaves skittering across the dusty lacquered floors like the empty shells of long-dead beasts; like the discarded carapaces of beetles.
His mother finishes with a stunted flourish and drops the quill. She folds the parchment in three and seals it with the signet ring on her bent forefinger. 'Yours now, Regulus,' she says, and laughs. Her arthritic hand clasps his jaw, her fingers curled like claws into his skin. He pries it away, ignores her hiss and whimper, and shoves her down into the chair. His hands on her shoulders seem too large, too precise and nimble: unnerving somehow.
'Yes,' he says quietly. 'Mine. Did you ever think things would end up like this? Did you ever wonder, mother?'
But his mother does not answer. She curls herself away from him and mutters under her breath, spiteful things, things she has not said since he and Sirius were little, and needed to be shocked with zealousness. Carefully, he tucks the parchment into the inside pocket of his robes and leaves her sitting at his dead father's desk, safe in the knowledge her joints are too stiff to let her rise and follow him. He stalks through the house, his house, trailing his finger through the sifting dust and scattering house elves before him. Even the echoes are deadened, as if the place is ready to welcome him as master rather than throwing about the sound of his footsteps from wall to wall.
In front of the great faded tapestry Regulus takes out his wand. He touches its tip to the threads, their colour all but worn to brown, between the R and the I of his brother's name. He does not say a thing aloud, merely stands there, still, for a moment, a muscle in his jaw flexing, his breath shuddering through him, juddering out of him through clenched teeth, until he opens his mouth and a noise escapes like a sob, like a stifled battle-cry, and brightness blooms at the tip of his wand, and smoke curls towards the ceiling, and his brother's name was never there, and his brother was never, was never.
***
Sirius is lying on his back on the huge polished dining table, his long hair trickling like water over its edge, his t-shirt pulled up to reveal his abdomen and its shifting muscles which tighten and twitch in time with the movement of his hand. His bare feet leave dirty prints on the pristine surface, and in his other hand the neck of a forgotten bottle sloshes whiskey onto the wood. The triangular slice of skin his open jeans reveal is white, damp, shadowed with hair leading down to where he's fisting his cock, fast and smooth and silent, faster as a flush creeps across his cheekbones and his open lips, his eyelids as they flutter shut.
He is silent too as he comes, and his face is blank, easy. Sirius licks a drop of it from his lip and pushes himself upright, still shuddering faintly. The bottle falls to the floor, but does not smash, and he ignores it. Its clamour bleeds into the echoes of the house. He rubs his callused hands over his face, and combs his fingers through his hair (its few strands of grey) and waits until his breathing slows once more. Eventually, he whispers, 'like that, did you?'
'Fuck, yeah,' says Harry, before he can stop himself.
Two
Summers they spent in the country, out of London's heat and grime and the stink of its noise and the sour bile smell of the river, and the scent like peat that hung in the air after dark. The house was a large turn of the century manor in Wiltshire, bulk like the prow of a ship, a stone ship jutting into morning mist, and the verdant verandas with their dew-licked ferns and potted hostas, their shaded spaces out of the sun and the evenings spent listening to the broaching fizz of gin and tonic and their mother's laughter rising and falling, and the murmured voices of men.
'Come with me,' says Sirius, and his palm against Regulus' wrist is damp. Regulus shrugs him off, goes back to his book, and lifts the fabric of his shirt away from his skin to let in the cool. It's evening. Lights are being lit in the house. Sirius' finger moves across the back of his neck, under his hair. 'Come on,' he says, 'I'll let you -'
Regulus snaps his book closed and goes inside, leaving his brother on the veranda, where moths are beginning to congregate. Bella is in the breakfast room reading a letter. 'Well hello, little Regulus,' she says, though he is six inches taller than her. 'Why aren't you off sucking Sirius' cock, or whatever it is you do?'
'I don't -' he begins, but she grabs his collar and pulls his face down level with hers. Her tongue licks across his lips, one broad slow warm stroke.
'I bet you do,' she whispers, pressing her breasts against him, 'I bet you crawl across to him and beg him to let you suck his cock. I bet you suck it until it's so hard, and then you sit on it and fuck yourself with it, and he doesn't even have to move you're so desperate for it.' She shudders against him, and her breath against his cheek smells of coffee and brandy. 'Have you let him fuck you, Regulus? Have you felt him inside you? I think you have, I think you love it, the pair of you so fucking pretty with your long hair and your eyes and your mouths open -'
Regulus kisses her, then. She chuckles into his mouth, deep and warm, but she parts her lips, and when he edges her backwards so he can press her against the table her hips are soft and the feel of her flesh against him, yielding and warm, makes him harden just a little. He kisses her until her breath as well as his own is beginning to quicken, and she keeps her eyes open all the time, boring into him, and then looking over his shoulder, and she gasps and shivers when he runs his fingers over her hardening nipple, but she's looking over his shoulder, behind him, and he knows then that his brother is there, watching.
His brother is always there. His brother is inescapable. His brother, dense and dark as something burnt, his gravity a black thing that draws everything in, and Regulus' orbit is decaying, decaying. He pulls away and rushes from the room.
***
Sirius rests his hands on the wall either side of Harry and dips his head so their faces are level, just about. Harry's gaze licks fire into his blood. 'Do you want me to kiss you?' he says. Harry's breath hitches, and he looks away. Sirius leans closer, and their bodies are almost touching, and he can feel the heat off Harry. 'I know you watch me, every fucking time. Why do you think I'm such a fucking exhibitionist?'
'Comes natural, I guess,' says Harry quietly, but he glances up into Sirius' eyes for a second, and the corners of his mouth twitch upward, slightly. It's enough for Sirius. He slams his body against Harry's and pushes their mouths together, slick red warmth with the glint of teeth clashing, and Harry clutches at his shirt and moans as Sirius pulls off his t-shirt and licks along his collarbone.
'I knew you fucking wanted it,' he mumbles against Harry's skin, mouth sliding across salt, burn and heat of muscle and bone beneath his lips. 'Little fucking slut, following me around like a bloody dog -' snort of laughter as his teeth graze Harry's abdomen '- every night the same, and then you creep off to your room and wank yourself dry. You think I don't know what name you're moaning, you little slut? You think I don't know how you want me to make you come?' And he takes Harry's cock into his mouth, and the sound Harry makes as Sirius pushes a finger inside him is low and desperate, ragged.
'I'll make you come, then,' he whispers, lips fluttering over the head of Harry's cock. Fingers are yanking at his hair desperately, but he ignores them and moves his mouth slowly, presses deeper with his fingers until Harry is yelling hoarsly for him to stop, for him to carry on, yelling in that broken voice. 'I'll fuck you, if you want,' Sirius whispers, and does not wait for an answer.
Three
'I'll fuck you, if you want,' Sirius whispers. His palm on the back of Regulus' neck is a point of heat, like the burning plane of Sirius forehead against his own. Regulus shuts his eyes and bows his head, but Sirius does not let go. He trails his finger down Regulus' nose, bridge to tip, and down onto his lips.
'I'm not -' Regulus starts, and Sirius begins to laugh, quiet and low. He presses his lips to Regulus' jaw and clasps his arms around Regulus' waist, shifting their bodies closer together, his breath stirring Regulus' hair. They're on the lawn, down by the blooming azaleas, rich tinge of summer on the air. He's always loved the smell, always. Now he smells it on the back of Sirius' neck.
And what was desire? What fabled heat stirred in him at that moment? Nothing he recognised, nothing aching at him, insistent as the growing dawn or the hot clasp of Sirius' body against his own. 'Please, Sirius, go back inside.' Quiet conversations of the birds. Sirius' hand on his chest pushing him back onto the neatly mown grass. His breath: 'Sirius, please,' and then the shock of Sirius' tongue trailing across the tender skin near his hip, his shirt pushed up a few inches, Sirius' fingers stroking his soft cock through his trousers.
Blush thuds into his cheeks, and he twists away, kicking his feet into turf. Sirius wraps his arms around Regulus' waist and says 'S'alright, Reg. I'm sorry.' But he does not let go.
***
'Did you miss him, after?' asks Harry. It's dark in the house, because no one has remembered to turn on the lights. Sirius crosses his arms behind his head and sniffs.
'My brother?' he says, voice still rough with not enough sleep. Harry nods beside him. He's lying close enough to touch, if Sirius wanted to, but he isn't touching. His hands fidget awkwardly like pale running spiders in the gloom. Sirius shrugs. 'Yeah,' he says. 'Sure. But I hadn't -' he stops and rubs a hand through his hair. 'I hadn't seen him for a year before it. We didn't really talk by then.'
'Oh,' says Harry. Without his glasses he looks younger than he is, perhaps, or perhaps he looks his age. Sirius turns his back and rolls onto his side. He wonders why the house smells familiar, suddenly, a shifting scent hard to trace, and he isn't listening, not really, as Harry says 'Must have been hard, being your brother.'
'Mmm,' says Sirius. 'Yeah.' He gets up and pulls on his trousers, tossing unfamiliar clothes over his shoulder to Harry and wandering out into the darkened entrance hall. Far above, light filters through a grimy stained-glass ceiling rose and plumbs the depths of the house, scuffing gently on the dull floor tiles. There's a draft coming up from the kitchen, where the tap drips it perpetual drip and the old black range gathers soot. His bare feet show flashes of their black soles as he goes down the stairs, and it's stronger here, the scent, laced through the air like smoke almost.
The back door is open. Out in the night time garden the azaleas are in bloom and beginning to fail, peach-coloured blossoms drooping flesh-pale in the moonlight.
Harry, standing by the kitchen door and uncertain in his pajama bottoms, watches as Sirius begins to laugh, a nasty low chuckle that makes him wish he understood. Sirius slams the door closed and says nothing for the rest of the night.
Four
Faded velvet and the petalled curl of rising smoke; the dark stain of spilled wine spreading, spreading over silver, and the air too hot to breathe, and his hair laid out like the burst of dark light that the sun leaves on shut eyes. Smeared and yielding cubes of turkish delight leave their sweetness on his lips, kohl its darkness at his eyes. Rings on his white fingers heavy and quiet against the goblet; candles spattering the rugs with white wax; the head that moves over his lap dipping, dipping, the wet heat sumptuous on his cock, the sigh blossoming on his lips, all of these things, all of them are pieces of what it is to be the eldest son of the House of Black.
It does not matter that he inherited the position, rather than being born to it. This means only that he earnt it. Regulus smiles and buries his fingers in the soft hair drifting over his lap, licks spilled wine from the corner of his mouth, and isn't it all spilling, isn't it all brim full with light and riches, too much, too much, and his blood heavy and quick roaring, that tongue against his cock, and the candle flames leaping up as his breath quickens are pulsing light, and he smiles, slow and hollow, and kicks over the candelabra with his foot, watching the flames spreading, watching them leap at the sumptuous hangings that glitter with exotic embroidery and precious stones.
His wand leaves glowing sigils in the air that twine to form strange shapes above him, keeping the flames at bay.
He throws back his head and laughs as he comes into Remus' mouth, both of them caught in the mouth of the fire, half swallowed in its roar.
***
'I did miss him,' Sirius blurts out, sweat beading on his upper lip, his head thrown back. Harry freezes.
'What?' he says, looking up. 'Christ, Sirius, not while -'
Sirius shakes his head and swallows weakly, urges Harry's head back down. It's raining, and evening, and soon the house will be full again, and this hinterland where time left them alone will end, and the dusk will set in, irrevocable. And he's grateful. How else would he have begun to say no? But - he's started saying it already, hasn't he? He has negated every nod of his head, every whispered fuck, yes with a turned back or a silence stretched out to breaking point. Harry's young. Harry will get over it.
Sirius' lips move, and only silence emerges, pale and secretive: I did.
Five
Regulus' fingers shake as they grasp the bottle; whiskey flows down his chin and soaks into his cuffs, errant sobs spill from his mouth. High smash of glass against the wall; his ragged rage echoing across the house. He rubs at his face with half-fisted hands, covers his eyes and staggers to the stairway. The house is filled with the smell of rotting fruit, and sour alcohol, and sweat; filled with the remnants of riches and souring light.
Regulus climbs, past the severed elf heads which leer from the wall at him, his feet heavy on each step, body thrummed with tears. At the top of the house he sinks to the dusty attic floor and spells the trapdoor shut. His voice is unsteady, and the incantation fails twice before he gets it right. Somewhere downstairs the one remaining house elf begins screaming in its high, reedy little voice. It's found the others, probably.
'Be quiet,' he yells, his voice breaking, 'be fucking quiet! Shut up, shut up. I can't -' There's quiet for a while, then a rhythmic banging.
A desperate voice is calling, 'Master Regulus, Master Regulus!' He hurls a stunning spell at the trapdoor, which rattles and sends up a cloud of dust. His face is crumpling, his voice curdling in his throat, oh god, oh fuck, I don't know what to, I don't know, I can't, oh fuck, fuck, please, I-
He raises his wand to his temple and yanks it away, streaming silver strands that tug at his mind, and are then released, flowing through the air at the tip of his wand, sliding down into the old pensieve and pooling there, harmless as water.
Regulus, breath aching out of him, stares down at the swirling memories. He doesn't know the spell, and has brought out other memories, too: bits of nothing and everything that are his life. But it's there, or a part of it: it's there, out of him, oh god, out of him at last. A face resolves itself in the penseive. Regulus shuts his eyes and raises his wand to his temple once more.
***
Sirius is up in the attic again. A patch of liquid silver light flickers on the angled roof above him, and where he sits, crosslegged in the crook of the ceiling, shadow hides him, lets out only the faint blue glint of his eyes. On the floor in front of him is a small stone dish.
It's dark, but there are smeared tear-tracks in the dirt on his cheeks. He presses the ball of his thumb to his lips and sits there quietly as the dark minutes slip past, and downstairs Harry is wondering where he is and if it's alright to call him, and in the garden the wind is picking up and scattering withered blossoms across the lawn. Sirius closes his eyes, and does not look into the pensive. He's already looked, knows what lives there, what memories haunt it.
A quiet voice in the darkness spills from the bowl, and says, 'I'll fuck you, if you want.' And there's a boy there lying among dying azaleas on his back, trying to get away, forever.