Fic: Most Loved (Sirius/Lucius, Sirius/Regulus), NC17
Title: Most Loved
Author: kabeyk
Pairing: Sirius/Lucius, Sirius/Regulus
Rating: NC17
Warnings: Sirius is sixteen, and Regulus only fifteen, so a bit chan-ish. And incestuous, clearly.
Words: 8,000+
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: Prompt 64: Lucius/Sirius - Lucius has something Sirius wants or needs, perhaps a book that will help with the Animagi transformations. Lucius is willing to give him whatever this is on the stipulation that Sirius give him his virginity. Yeah, I definitely cheated a bit.
Thanks to wildestranger for reading this through. And I didn't have to bribe her at all. Ahem.
Summary: Regulus hadn't realised what a near thing it was, hadn't realised that 'final straw' meant just that: final. If Lucius Malfoy's crash course in good pureblood behaviour doesn't work, then Regulus doesn't like to think about what will happen.
Most Loved
The Last Straw, as Regulus starts referring to it, was, quite frankly, nothing spectacular. Blowing the house up, during one of their parents' dinner parties, in a ball of flames and sparkling motes of still-burning ash and debris - that would have been something, Regulus thinks, a little wistful, but sadly that isn't what happens. What Sirius actually did - on a rainy July day, once Regulus had adamantly refused to take his clothes off and accompany his brother in naked, wet, neighbour-shocking garden frolics - merely involved one of his mother's complex (expensive) anti-aging beauty treatments, and Regulus wonders why Sirius even bothered, though maybe he was just bored.
"Wow," Sirius says, wiggling his left hand in Regulus' face; his left hand which is currently wrapped dried-solid in soft linen bandages that Mrs Black likes to drape herself in about once a month in the pathetic hope that it tones her skin and gives it a youthful, purified glow. "Rock solid," Sirius adds happily, knocking his hard, grotesque, twisted lump of a half-curled fist playfully against the side of Regulus' head and then his shoulder. "Muggles fix broken bones like this, you know."
Regulus sighs and says, "She'll kill you," though Sirius is barely listening, staring instead in fascinated awe at the thin, fragrant bandages he has delicately twined around each of his fingers, tight around his palm and tapering off at the wrist.
Sirius sits outside their mother's bedroom, tapping on his left hand with the fingers of his right, a look of pure joy on his face as he listens to the hollow thunking sound it makes, all while she shrieks at him, her voice too high and strangely tight from the quickly-drying bandages holding down her chest and upper lip and jaw like a really effective straightjacket. Regulus shoots Sirius a nasty look every time he walks past, but Sirius just grins, his usual unthinking, gormless smile, and waves his hand in a monstrous way.
Later on, Regulus finds his brother sitting on his bed, still obsessively contemplating his hand, and Regulus feels compelled to say, "You are going to take that off at some point?" Sirius shrugs, stroking a finger in circles inside his own papery palm. "It'll get unhygienic," Regulus continues, before it hits him, "-oh god, they won't take it off for you, will they?"
"Could do it myself," Sirius sneers, though Regulus knows that such a harsh sneer means there's just enough self doubt lingering somewhere, "just wondering if it'd be worth lubing it up first; might be a good wank."
Regulus' face twists. "Don't be disgusting; it'll smell like mum."
Sirius contemplates him for a few slow seconds, eyes wide and grey with only a hint of a frown, before he casually punches Regulus in the stomach left-handed. Once Regulus has folded neatly in two and crumpled, gasping, to the floor, Sirius asks, "Why do you say things like that?" in a way that sounds as if he'd just really like to know.
Winded, Regulus writhes and struggles for air and is angry that someone as inexplicable as Sirius can suggest that he, Regulus, is the one that is odd in the head. He tries to say 'fuck off', but he only manages as far as "Fu-uhh-" before he has to croak an unearthly, groaning breath inwards.
"Did I hurt your belly?" Sirius asks, his voice not entirely without sympathy, and gets off the bed, crouches down and rests his right hand on the pale blue material of Regulus' robes, rubbing soft circles around his belly-button until Regulus can breathe again.
When Regulus has almost been lulled to sleep, flat on the wooden floor of Sirius' bedroom, by his own deep, grateful breaths and the warm comfort in his belly, Sirius spoils it by saying, "Anyway, you'd better go; I really have got to try this hand thing."
Dinner is awkward, what with Sirius' fork clanging down onto his plate every few seconds, and the way he's trying so hard not to laugh every time the cutlery slips from his frozen fingers. Regulus doesn't understand what's so funny, when his mother and father are, respectively, red and white with anger, but Sirius is probably already planning in his head how he'll describe this incident to James bloody Potter. Or maybe he's just amazingly happy, because wanking with a solid, dead, mummified hand is really, really brilliant.
Once dinner is thankfully done with and Regulus is safely ensconced in his bedroom, it's at least an hour and a half, possibly nearly two, before all the shouting stops, though Regulus pretends he's not counting. The word 'disobedient' is the most over-used this time, and that's almost funny, because if they wanted Sirius to be obedient then they'd have to get him brainwashed; get a new brain or a new Sirius.
It's quiet for a while, but Sirius stomps into Regulus' room when some new shouting starts up again. He no longer has a creepy, alien glove-thing on his left hand, though he claims he's kept the scorched pieces to remember it by. Regulus is already in bed and Sirius crawls in with him and places his shiny new left hand on the pillow between them. "Y'think my hand looks younger?" Sirius mumbles sleepily into the pillow.
Regulus settles closer and runs his fingers over the back of his brother's hand; incredibly silky skin stretched over long, smooth bones and tendons. "Feels younger."
"Mmf," Sirius agrees, and Regulus hates him for being able to sleep while their parents argue. When he turns Sirius' hand over to see if there's less wrinkles on his palm, he sees the angry red marks of a severing charm performed too close to skin, a burnt-pink line slicing along each finger, and he snuggles closer to his brother and pulls the sheets over their heads.
When Regulus wanders down for breakfast the next day, a tall, forbidding-looking man is standing in their hallway.
#
Regulus remembers the wedding. Two things; the long sleeves of his navy dress robes - the shudder that ran through him every time the velvet brushed any part of his skin, the itch at his neck and wrists from the constant rub of the circles of stiff lace. And cousin Cissy; so young and glowing and smiling, her white wedding robes flowing down into a long train, every part of her decorated with too much silk.
Sirius sat next to Regulus - wearing black like he was at school because he'd cunningly waited until the very last minute to hex his best dress robes full of holes - and Regulus tugged periodically at his sleeve, saying "Sirius, Sirius, isn't she amazing?" in complete awe, because she was, and he couldn't take his eyes off her.
"Not really," Sirius had grunted, and slouched lower in his seat.
"My wife'll be like that," Regulus had whispered, breath wet on Sirius' fluffy little ear. "She'll be perfect."
Sirius had snorted, laughed and laughed in barely-concealed snuffles, a few other guests turning to stare angrily at their pew at the back of the hall. "Be like a doll, will she?" he'd choked, tweaking the ruffles of lace nestled around Regulus' throat. "Sit on her throne every day, eating strawberry creams while the House Elves paint her toenails?" He was boring holes in Regulus with the wild look in his eyes.
Regulus tossed his hair at that, twisting his lips petulantly, fingers accidentally smoothing over the front of his hateful robes. "Why not?"
"Yeah, maybe," Sirius had conceded finally, sounding almost sad, "if you managed to con some poor bitch into it, yeah."
"You don't want to get married then?" Regulus asked, shocked. "Mum and Dad'll-"
"I know." Sirius had been very pink in the face, but had looked incredibly pleased with himself.
#
Regulus doesn't see Sirius for the whole day, well, a good six hours; a long time during the summer holidays when it's raining and both your parents are stormy-faced, painfully waiting for something. As if something is about to happen.
He tries to remember all he knows about Lucius Malfoy, but it isn't much; just the ostentatious wedding and his impossibly grand and neat family home. The awful, girlish white robes Regulus was made to wear last time they ate dinner at Cissy's and the way Mr Malfoy played the piano after the meal, all long fingers and fast-flowing notes.
Maybe the man is just teaching Sirius the piano, Regulus thinks, rather stupidly, though no-one plays the piano for six hours straight and without lunch. It doesn't take six hours to tell someone off (or beat them into submission, Regulus hopes), or explain familial duty and the responsibility of being the heir to a great pure-blood line, all that bollocks that makes their dad so angry when Sirius couldn't care less.
Hyperactive and lacking in basic concentration skills Sirius may be, but he's quick enough to realise that shutting the hell up would mean it was over so much faster. Except he does like to argue, when he thinks their parents are wrong so fucking bloody wrong and every time anyone mentions Sirius' schoolfriends, and maybe Mr Malfoy has taken to beating him, in the hope it might stop the screaming.
Regulus spends all day hiding in his room, pretending he's not worried - or hiding for that matter - and the strangest thing is that he hasn't heard any screaming, all day, from anyone. And he's waiting too, not for Sirius' redemption like his parents are, but for the final explosion, and he'll be disappointed, again, if it doesn't come.
#
Sirius flops into Regulus' bed that night, after a very late and silent and awkward family dinner, in which Sirius ate like a starved horse and no-one met anyone's eyes. There are no marks visible on Sirius' face or arms, during the meal or now, but Regulus immediately sets himself upon the buttons of Sirius' nightshirt to check him over.
Smooth white collarbone, good, shadows along bones - not bruises - and those two chest hairs that Sirius is so proud of, all still intact. "So how was it?" Regulus asks, pretending he wasn't up to anything odd and ignoring the real question, which was 'What was it?'
"Fine," Sirius says, sounding irritable, though that's likely more to do with the fact that Regulus has rested his thumb in Sirius' belly button while he leans over to check the left hip for injuries. "Reggie! Aw, you were all worried about me, weren't you?" Sirius' face bursts into that teasing, smug grin of his.
"No!" Regulus exclaims, accidentally squeezing Sirius' thigh so hard that his whole body jerks in pain. Because he hadn't been worried, not really.
#
Mrs Black decides to go shopping, in a disturbingly good mood that next morning, Kreacher bobbing at her heels. She promises good food for dinner, and hints at a present for Sirius if he continues to be well behaved and polite when Mr Malfoy visits. Regulus freezes; he hadn't even contemplated the possibility that the first time was only the beginning, and the idea of cousin Cissy's creepy, handsome husband regularly tutoring his brother fills him with an inexplicable forboding.
How stupid can she get? Regulus wonders at his mother thinking that after a few hours with some mad, blond, no-doubt inbred relative that Sirius is tame enough to be left alone with the run of the house.
"Come on," Sirius says joyfully, pulling Regulus out into the garden barely ten seconds after the floo flares down. "Show you what he taught me." And Regulus gapes as he's dragged outside, because not only has Mr Malfoy been teaching Sirius things, but Sirius has actually been learning. And enjoying it.
After much pointless faffing and dramatic introductions, Sirius turns sharply and points his wand at the plum tree in the centre of the lawn and mutters something short and incoherent at the same time as Regulus yelps "Sirius!" in a bit of a panic. The explosion, when it comes, is thankfully a let-down; soft and dull and wet, and all that's exploded is a single plum, the small stone dropping vertically to the grass and the wet flesh bursting directly outwards in all directions.
"Fuck," Regulus gasps, while his heartbeat is still racing and his blood rushes with relief that no-one is going to have to explain to mother where the plum tree went to, "that is brilliant." He flicks a sticky clump of plum off his sleeve.
Sirius crows, "I know!" the ecstatic grin practically splitting his face in half. "I know and I did it," and he whirls around again and bursts a few more plums in quick succession. "Brilliant. They never teach you the good stuff at school."
Regulus presses his lips together thoughtfully and then asks, "Does it only work on fruit?"
#
The next time Mr Malfoy is due to visit, Sirius is so restless with excitement that it's all Regulus can do not to punch him in the face just to calm him down. Or maybe he just wants to punch him in the face.
Pathetically, Regulus had been looking forward to the summer; spending time with Sirius, and only Sirius, since all of Sirius' schoolfriends were summarily banned from ever setting foot in Grimmauld Place ever again. And now he'd have to share with a grown-up who knew frightening, brilliant new spells and was so hideously wonderful that Sirius' knee jiggled incessantly at the breakfast table, however hard Regulus pressed down on Sirius' thigh with his palm.
#
Regulus is too taken up in the breathless thrill of Sirius grabbing him, pushing them into their father's study and pulling Regulus flush against his body. He digs his fingers hard into the sides of Sirius' ribcage, heaving in lungfuls of sweat from his brother's clammy neck and mutters, "What-"
"Shh, concentrating."
He can feel the clench of Sirius' jaw against his forehead, knows his face will be screwed up into that intense, tight expression. "Are we stealing whisky again?" he asks, as Sirius shivers a little against him. That had been good, the whisky, ignoring the screeching coming from downstairs while they giggled and took turns swigging from the bottle, slopping the spirit on Regulus' sheets and play-fighting and tickling.
"No," Sirius says shortly, and then his right arm, the one that isn't clutched protectively around Regulus' back and shoulders, swoops out and the room starts to spin; books and papers swirling and flapping like frightened, angry birds; the desk and chairs creaking and scraping across the floorboards as they try to follow. Regulus burrows closer into Sirius' body, hearing, above the papery tornado, Sirius' shaking, laughing breaths.
And then Sirius' arm lowers, and it all stops. After a few seconds, Regulus loosens his grip and dares to look up, peering over Sirius' shoulder, around the smooth line of his throat, and says, "Oh fuck."
There's four, pleasantly-quiet hours before their father decides he needs to use his study.
Regulus cowers, standing back a bit, trying to edge behind Sirius while their father - well, he never shouts, he isn't the type that needs to shout like their mother does. Instead, their dad is quietly angry, tiredly disappointed when he looks at Regulus and straight-mouthed and forceful while he explains to Sirius the sort of behaviour he expects from him.
"But Mr Malfoy taught it to me," Sirius says finally, and Regulus is momentarily in complete awe. He lets himself hope a little; that this is Sirius' genius way of getting rid of his ghastly tutor. But Sirius is just standing there, relaxed, smiling - the blatant cheek of him - and high on pissing off his father.
Their dad tilts his chin, a firm, proud gesture that Sirius has caught from him, and says, "He would not have wished you to-"
"Fine."
Sirius shoves Regulus jerkily in the back and herds him towards the door. On their way out, Sirius sweeps his right arm once more, and the books and papers lift and re-settle exactly how they were before. Regulus doesn't get the chance to catch his father's reaction.
#
Tired and unable to sleep, Regulus realises that this is what his parents had been waiting for this past week; for Lucius Malfoy to break Sirius, and Regulus wonders if this weird, contemplative mood of his brother's is the beginning of just that. Regulus whines a little, pushing himself close to Sirius' cheek, staring at Sirius' blank, impassive face; eyes closed but not asleep, his hands folded on top of the blankets.
"I'm fine," Sirius insists, again, "I just have a lot to think about," but since when did Sirius waste time thinking when he could be doing?
"Kiss me," Regulus whispers, because he likes kissing, and being kissed by, Sirius, because it was wrong, mum said so.
A few days before Sirius had started school for the first time, after the ritual burning and burying of Sirius' nasty new dress robes, and he'd been caught at it (with Regulus assisting) and made to sew name labels on all his school robes and pants and socks himself, by hand, as punishment, with Kreacher ending up curled in the pantry, wailing and grinding his teeth in frustration at Sirius' appalling needlework.
Regulus had sat next to Sirius, while Sirius frustratedly stabbed at a sock with his needle, and kissed Sirius' free hand; the palm, which, unsurprisingly, was sticky and gritty and smelled of skin and salt and dirt and things that were on fire. Their mother had caught him and dragged Regulus off and had shouted, as if nothing in the world angered her more than her two sons being so close and the fact that they would miss each other, when she was just glad to get rid of her naughtiest child until Christmas.
"You're fifteen, Regulus," Sirius says now, and he does have a point; Regulus has kissed two actual girls in the last year, but they weren't very good, and one of them told the girl he really liked that he was bad at it.
"So what?" Regulus widens his eyes to look younger, and somehow it works and Sirius sighs and leans over and kisses him on the mouth, muttering, "Brat." Regulus smiles through his pout and presses up into it, sniggering and licking a bit and trying to make it last.
"You need someone else to practice on," Sirius adds when he's pulled away, but Regulus can feel his brother smiling, and takes that as excuse enough to snuggle into his chest and listen to Sirius' heavy breaths.
#
Regulus hadn't realised what a near thing it was, hadn't realised that final straw meant just that: final. If Lucius Malfoy's crash course in good pureblood behaviour doesn't work, then Regulus doesn't like to think about what will happen.
Sirius is the naughty one, gets more attention because of it. Regulus is the youngest, the spare, the just-in-case; he's not the most-loved, he just gets coddled. He's the one their mother pets and cuddles and praises, the one Kreacher sneaks treats for, the one their father complains about Sirius to.
Sirius rails and shouts about it sometimes, about favouritism, forgetting that he could easily be the favourite if he wanted to, forgetting that he is everything they want him to be, except for obedient.
"When I'm gone," Sirius says, and Regulus doesn't know if he means murdered-by-Kreacher-for-shattering-every-jam-jar-in-the-pantry gone, or locked-in-the-cellar-until-he-learns-why-you-don't-call-Uncle-Rodolphus-a-monkey-fucker gone, "you'll keep on persecuting them, won't you?"
"The parents," Regulus asks, "yeah."
"Good boy," Sirius says with a wild grin, and kisses him on the lips right there in the kitchen.
#
"It feels like," Regulus says cautiously, eyes on the fuzzy-curly bit of hair next to Sirius' left ear, "like he's changing you." He paws frustratedly at Sirius' shoulder, because Sirius spent the day at Malfoy Manor, a very long day, or so it felt like to Regulus. And he's come back even stranger than usual, quiet, contemplative. It's so out of character, it hurts.
Sirius looks thoughtful at Regulus' comment, and not in a wicked, plotting sort of way - which is new and disturbing enough in itself, along with the careful way he bites his lip as he searches for the right word. "He's enigmatic," he settles on, "yeah. Talks a lot of bollocks; pride, purity, family, all that rot. Don't think he gets that I-that I'm not with him on that, really. Thinks he's got me; manipulating me, controlling me. But he isn't," Sirius finishes on insistently, head turning quickly on the pillow and he notices Regulus' dubious frown. "And he's teaching me things, all those wonderful spells."
Regulus says, "You stopped showing me," because he'd feel a lot better about it all if Sirius took him out into the garden again, "stopped showing me the things he teaches." He pouts at Sirius, because he has every right to be suspicious; if suspicious is the right word, and 'jealous' wouldn't be more appropriate.
Sirius nods, still too vague and dreamy about the eyes, his smile too mild before he abruptly shifts and disappears under the sheets. Regulus tenses automatically as his nightshirt is shoved up, but instead of the blunt tingling pressure of Sirius' wand and a nasty muttered spell, it's just Sirius' mouth Regulus feels, pushed soft to his belly.
"Don't-" Regulus says, brightly angry at being fobbed off, but he isn't; there's no wet, blurting raspberry blown against his belly; he's just being kissed. Sirius doesn't stop anyway, lips dry and gentle and his fingers little spots of sweaty heat on Regulus' waist.
It tickles a bit: Regulus giggles, stomach muscles quivering, and Sirius sniggers against his skin in reply and then, "Shh, let me concentrate," which brings Regulus' laughter up short.
"Mr Malfoy taught you this?" he asks stiffly, scared and incredulous.
Sirius says "No, silly," with more sniggering, so Regulus relaxes as the kissing gets wetter and a bit harder and less ticklish. It's the most bizarre thing, of course; Sirius nipping at the skin on his hips and abdomen, licking and huffing long breaths like he's really contented doing this.
Regulus is busy thinking about how weird it is, so it's slightly too long before he notices how warm and nice it's making him feel. "Sirius," he hisses warningly, because his cock is, rather embarrassingly, prodding Sirius in the throat.
"Shh," Sirius says again, and then his lips are on the head of Regulus' cock, pressing it in hard to Regulus' belly with his firm kisses. "Shh now," he adds, and then the next sound he makes is more of a gruff 'mmm', and then his lips are wrapped around and he's sucking softly.
Regulus doesn't bother to shove him away; Sirius always gets what he wants, and anyway, Regulus doesn't want him to stop. Sirius moves slowly, hands stroking up and down Regulus' hips while his head bobs and his tongue slides, wet and cushiony under Regulus' cock.
Regulus eventually manages to whine, "Stop," when he feels the tension and pleasure winding too tightly and he must be barely five seconds away, but Sirius takes one last, long suck on him and Regulus cries out quietly, the muscles in his thighs tensing rigid as he comes.
After, Sirius stays down for a bit, licking at Regulus' belly again, maybe to clean the taste from his tongue. "Sirius," Regulus pleads, the name suddenly feeling strange in his mouth, though probably not as strange as it is for Sirius. Inexplicably, Sirius comes up grinning carelessly, as if he expects a Wow, that was brilliant, you must teach me too, instead of the mostly appalled look Regulus can feel on his own face.
"Good at that, aren't I?" Sirius laughs. He flops onto his back, head thrown back on the pillow, and it takes nearly ten seconds before Regulus realises what he's doing with his hand, and now it's definitely this that's the sickest part of it all.
Words don't come, so Regulus can't say Do that in your own damn bed, and maybe that would be a bit rude under the circumstances. He watches anyway; Sirius' eyes closed, mouth loose and slightly open and almost smiling. Sirius' breaths get fast very quickly, the movement of his arm under the sheets speeding up too. And he's still beautiful, even in this; beautiful even when he's wanking off in his brother's bed, eyes tight shut and lashes shivering as he dreams of Mr Malfoy's lean body, that shining blond hair, his large, grateful cock and whatever encouraging words he mutters when he's fucking the mouths of young boys.
Sirius' jaw clenches and something breaks inside Regulus, as Sirius' eyes flash open, pupils dilated, and the jerks of his hand slow to a stop.
Eventually, after Sirius has rubbed his fingers dry on his own stomach, he turns his head to the side and says, "You watched me," a hint of a question in his voice, the usual tilt of the head and a Why would you do that?
"I saw you thinking about him," Regulus says, angry, but Sirius laughs and kisses him, and laughs more when he gets pushed away in disgust.
#
Regulus is a bit embarrassed the next morning. Okay, not just a bit, more like all-consuming appalled, with nervous twitching hands and not looking anyone in the eye, and at some point he'll really have to learn to hide these things, because at fifteen he's still the worst liar ever in existence and both of his parents are giving him disturbed, suspicious looks over the breakfast table.
"He did teach you that," Regulus says in low, angry voice when he finally gets Sirius alone.
Sirius says, "Don't be daft," with a careless flick of his hands, and turns away like he isn't obviously lying. Which he is, Regulus knows he is, but he'll hardly run to his parents and say-Say what: that Mr Malfoy is teaching Sirius… bad things? That won't happen.
"Oh, but he showed me this brilliant specific severing charm," Sirius continues and tugs Regulus out into the garden again. In the sunshine, he turns and wordlessly slices the heads off every last one of their mother's beloved black roses in one clean, neat movement, the surrounding foliage untouched. He stoops low and sweeps one up from the dirt, handing the broken bloom to Regulus from down on one knee.
Regulus takes it from him awkwardly; prickly stem and glossy black petals that are soft like silk. "She loves these, she'll kill you." Sirius has always gloried in breaking their mother's favourite things.
"No she won't," Sirius insists with a toss of his shining hair. "'Long as I'm being a good boy for Lucius, she'd let me get away with murder." His smile, his eyes, are a little too mad, and Regulus watches him with wide eyes; there were so many things wrong with that sentence that he doesn't know where to start.
Regulus knows, now, exactly what it is being a 'good boy' entails and that's horrifying. But mostly he's jealous at the soft, affectionate way Sirius says 'Lucius'.
#
"He's beautiful, isn't he," Sirius sighs a few nights later, happy and wriggly as he cuddles down in Regulus' bed.
Like a silly twittering first year with a crush, and it makes Regulus so angry. He doesn't bother to ask 'Who?' because, who else? "If you like your girls really girly," he snaps, "and obscenely blond, and, and, foppish." He doesn't completely know what 'foppish' means, but it sounds good.
Sirius moans "Mmm," really enjoying the word 'obscene'. He turns onto his side: Regulus can see out of the corner of his eye that he's being watched, and Sirius' face has gone a bit serious, and then Sirius says quietly, "Don't really like girls," as if it isn't an awful, terrible and wrong, so, so wrong thing to say.
"Suddenly you don't like girls?" Regulus says, eyes still fixed on the elaborate plaster-moulding that covers the ceiling. "But you did before. You've kissed girls?"
"No, why would I?" he asks, as if kissing girls was a ridiculous thing for a teenage boy to do.
"But." Regulus panics, quietly. He's kissed more girls than his older brother, who should have done more, because he's the eldest and clearly the beautiful one. His brother, who is, suddenly, some sort of poof, and lying in bed with him, and-His brain stutters to a stop when he thinks of that, that thing, a couple of nights ago. Eventually he gasps, "But you've kissed other boys-I mean, boys; you've kissed boys?"
Regulus feels Sirius shrug against the mattress. "James lets me, sometimes. But he likes girls, really." He sounds a little wistful.
Disturbing, definitely. Regulus could have gone without that mental image; Sirius' scruffy, annoying, evil best friend, especially recently, with that weird new nickname Sirius has started using for him, heading all the letters he sends to James with it, and now it sounds like it's something dirty. Yuck.
"Mum and dad'll kill you," Regulus points out unnecessarily, just to have something to say. It's practically his catchphrase anyway. He finally dares to turn and look at Sirius, who's staring at him, wide-eyed and thoughtful, which Regulus doesn't understand, because surely Sirius should be a bit more worried?
No wonder it's so much weirder for Sirius when Regulus asks for a kiss.
#
This, he knows, is just pathetic, his eyes level with the crack in the heavy curtains, elbows uncomfortable on the hard window-ledge.
They're duelling in the garden - so Sirius doesn't break anything, because he duels like a whirlwind, like a hurricane gusting through, shattering everything in the room - carefully circling each other, tension sharp in the bright sunshine. They look impressive; Sirius, at sixteen, nearly as tall as his beautiful tutor and at least as handsome, dark hair loose in front of his eyes, even as he watches his enemy intently. For a second, even Malfoy looks young behind his white-blond hair, if not all that innocent; Regulus often forgets, that for all the man's ambition and riches, that he is young, that he married Cissy straight out of school.
Not that his tender age excuses any of this, though.
Usually, every movement of Sirius' is casual and careless, even when he fights, but now he's alert and precise and that's something else about him that's been changing recently. He's on edge. Regulus would have bet his life on Mr Malfoy being a tricky, underhanded bugger, and suddenly he's scared that this will be a dirty, dangerous fight.
And then it starts, and this is also like a hurricane, and an earthquake and a lightning storm all in one. That miniature whirlwind charm is nothing compared to this: light flashes and bursts, trees and plants tremble and break, and all in silence as the two dark shapes in the middle of it all swish their arms and wands.
When the dust settles, of course it's Sirius flat out on the grass, Malfoy tall and imposing as he looms, grandly bent at the waist, above him, wand pushed up under Sirius' vulnerable jaw, just where it's soft. Regulus doesn't breathe as he watches, letting Sirius' chest-heaving gasps do it for him. Regulus is scared for him, for the whole minute they stay in position.
And then Malfoy throws his wand aside and snaps down to his knees, hand instead of wand cupping Sirius' neck. He mutters something that it would be impossible for Regulus to hear, but Sirius doesn't move, chest still pumping hard and eyes wild and beady.
Mr Malfoy bends closer and kisses him.
Their parents are out anyway, and Regulus is supposed to be elsewhere too, but it's still obscene; kissing your pupil, a relative, five years your junior, in broad daylight. More obscene is the eager way Sirius jerks his hips and face upwards, hands curling gratefully into the grass and dirt.
#
Malfoy looks so silly sat at their dining table, his shock of white hair tastelessly out of place amongst all the black. He looks like a caricature, full lips and sharp, expressive grey eyes, his long pianist's fingers as they caress the silverware and the stem of his wine glass.
What Regulus hates the most is the way his father looks so serious tonight, that he takes Mr Malfoy so seriously. Even the way his mother is, vaguely, in her own deeply unusual way, sort-of flirting with the younger man, plenty of We're so grateful to you and I'm sure Sirius would love to hear more about your work, as she toys with her food and her eyes flicker smugly to her eldest son.
Dad asks lots of questions, strange, veiled ones that seem to be more about the accompanying facial expressions - delicately raised eyebrows, strange curves of lips - than the actual words, and the slow conversation is full of careful inflections of tone and studied pauses. Sirius hunches over his plate and gobbles his food, presumably to prove he isn't listening avidly, when he really is; soaking in the names and places, taking note of what it was that father read in yesterday's paper that was very interesting, of which Ministry staff are hinted to be incompetent, and who it is that makes Mr Malfoy smile with only half his mouth and nod almost imperceptibly.
Wishing people would just say what they bloody mean, Regulus tolerates it all, even the near-worshipful glow in Sirius' eyes when Lucius praises Sirius' intelligence and talents. Creepy, very creepy, Regulus thinks, shuddering, knife squealing against his plate as he slices his potatoes. It's almost as if their father knows; knows that Sirius will never marry, that beautiful blond men are the perfect way to distract their wayward son.
Before, Regulus hadn't spent enough time with Lucius Malfoy to judge for himself, and dinner doesn't really help. He can see it - how graceful the man is, how attractive - but he just doesn't feel it, and he's painfully angry at Sirius for being stupid enough to fall for it.
After the meal, Mr Malfoy and their father retire to the study for drinks and cigars, while Regulus is trapped in the sitting room with their mum gushing over Malfoy's person and manners, as if he were a potential suitor for one of her sons rather than her eldest's sleazy, paedophilic tutor. Sirius shifts restlessly, tinkling his spoon around his coffee cup and fiddling with the biscuits until Mr Malfoy comes back through to say his goodbyes and requests a private word with Sirius before he leaves.
Regulus times them, the hollow ticks and thunks from the mantelpiece clock, and it’s definitely long enough.
#
"Are you in love with him?" Regulus asks, even though he knows it's a childish, simplistic way of looking at it. The man is their cousin's husband, for god's sake, and you can't be in love with your own relatives, though for some reason his strange brain chooses that moment to remember Sirius under his bedclothes, his hot wet mouth sliding slowly up and down, as if that is remotely the same thing.
Sirius pouts at him, half amused, those same soft red lips. "Reggie," he says, slow and measured, "he thinks it's okay to kill, sometimes, if it's someone who's not important. I'm… fairly sure he's trying to recruit me to be one of his evil pureblooded minions and help him take over the world, so, you know." He shrugs, as if it's nothing. "You just can't love people like that."
It's sort of fascinating, in an awful, twisted way, how Sirius is in thrall to the man yet simultaneously afraid of him, hating him. Regulus watches the mad edge in Sirius' eyes; on some level he's scared, of Lucius Malfoy, of what he could do, and it pleases Regulus. Not that he was jealous, except he is, so very much.
"Come on," Sirius whispers, and then leans to kiss him. Regulus relaxes, arms wrapping easily and tightly around Sirius' narrow waist, Sirius' hands holding his shoulders.
#
They lie out in the garden, yellow sunshine and green grass, bright colours confusing Regulus because it feels like he's spent the entire summer creeping through the dark, moody house.
Sirius is manic today - there was shouting at breakfast - and is squirming about on the grass because he's finding 'still' too difficult. Regulus' stomach churns, unable to not think about his brother lying there, easy and far-too-willing as Lucius Malfoy assaulted his mouth; the smug way Malfoy enjoyed it, pressing down and letting Sirius fuck upwards against his thigh.
"How much do you think she hates me?" Sirius asks, and that wasn't what Regulus had thought they would be talking about at all. The morning's argument had been unbearably familiar, same old, same old, and their mum hadn't really known what to do with it, hadn't punished Sirius in case it was just a small blip, soon ironed out with a bit more work with the amazing Mr Malfoy.
Regulus ignores it and says, "You've been extra insane, since last night," because he wants to know what Malfoy made Sirius do this time. Regulus hates the idea of Sirius having sex. He wonders if he'd be less uncomfortable if it was an older woman Sirius was having an affair with, if it was showy, sneering, beautiful cousin Narcissa tutoring him. But then, it could hardly make Regulus any more jealous, could it?
"Mmm, yeah, yeah," is all Sirius replies with, and when Regulus turns to look, Sirius' eyes are very bright and one of his arms is jiggling impatiently. Regulus hates Sirius like this; pent up and trying to escape his own skin, because there's nothing to be done that helps.
"It was worth it, though," Sirius says eventually, voice strangely broken and stilted, "all of it."
Regulus doesn't understand, the words or the past tense, so he just slips his palm into Sirius', grips firmly to stop the shaking. Sirius squeezes back, so hard that Regulus whimpers, and they both just lie there holding hands.
#
Sirius breezes into Regulus' room that night, still fastening the buttons on his nightshirt, all frazzled energy and crazed hair. Regulus is caught up with thinking, You're so beautiful, watching his brother's smoothly muscled legs (nothing like Regulus' own), his elegant neck, his fragile wrists; and he only notices the tight, red-flowering bruises - too dark to be hidden by his thin shirt - once Sirius has kneeled up on the bed, bouncing a little.
"What?" Sirius asks, careless, full of cherubic innocence even with deep tooth-marks across his chest and belly.
"What," Regulus says, a snarl, "did you let him do?" and Sirius' anger flares and he dives for Regulus, jams him down hard against the mattress and kisses him, kisses him, not silly, sloppy childish kisses like usual, but fierce and serious.
Sirius is on him, heavy and solid, hands holding him still by his cheeks. "Stop asking," Sirius says around Regulus' tongue, "if you don't want to know," his hips bony as the press into Regulus'.
Maybe I do want to know, Regulus thinks, scared, mirroring Sirius' actions out in the garden with Mr Malfoy and pressing himself desperately up into Sirius' mouth. "This is-" he chokes out, trying to say wrong or ridiculous, but it feels horribly lovely, and before he knows it his hands are rubbing at Sirius' waist, feeling his soft skin, hot through his thin nightshirt.
Sirius groans a low sort of sound, "ummn," fingers lower now, thumbs stroking up under Regulus' bare thighs, pulling his legs apart. Regulus knows that he must have got hard, very hard, with Sirius' lips still crushing down on his. He can feel that Sirius is hard, right against his hip, and then Sirius shifts a bit further and their cocks are touching.
"But," Regulus says, "Sirius," and Sirius pulls his mouth off to look down at him and Regulus' heart thumps even faster as they watch each other.
"Sorry," Sirius whispers, head tilting his lips close to Regulus' ear, "sorry." He starts to pull off, peeling their clammy skin apart, sticky legs, bare from having hitched their shirts up.
"Yeah," Regulus agrees, though he thinks this is a lot less his fault. Above him, crouched on all fours, Sirius' arms tremble and his eyes are still sharp and wild, lustful and probably only a bit sorry. His prick continues to stick right out, wanting, and Regulus tries not to stare, though it's weirdly beautiful, that it's just for him.
Sirius sighs. He kisses Regulus clumsily on the cheek, then again more gently, trailing his lips around to Regulus' ear and then jaw. "What," Regulus asks, just as Sirius confesses, "I let him-"
One of Regulus' hands has somehow migrated back up to Sirius' waist, and the nails curl in, already knowing, already angry, as he says, "Let him what?"
Sirius curls down, rests his forehead to Regulus' chest, and Regulus feels exposed: Sirius is still between his spread legs, and Regulus is throbbing with how much he needs to come. "Are you still jealous?" Sirius asks, breath soft and hot over Regulus' cock. His hands go to Regulus' thighs again, sliding under, kneading the flesh steadily.
"Wasn't, wasn't," Regulus insists, wriggling against Sirius' fingertips, liking it far too much until one finger slips up too far. "Ah-"
"It was good, really good," Sirius tells him firmly, and there must have been a wordless charm in there somewhere, because his finger starts sliding easily and further in.
Regulus is silent, because Sirius is right; it feels so good; hot little circles of fingertip tickling him in weirdly exciting ways. He closes his eyes, to hide himself, and to hide from the look in Sirius' grey eyes; hungry and a little frightening as he slowly, carefully, massages inside Regulus.
"Roll over," Sirius says suddenly, up and back on his knees now, staring down, stiff cock bobbing with each thrust of his fingers. "Go on."
He does, pressing his hips down into the bed for a couple of grateful seconds before Sirius lifts him.
Sirius mumbles "Hush," holding Regulus' hips on his lap, palms sticky on Regulus' arse as his thumbs rub their way inwards, and only then does it start to hurt; a thicker feeling and too much pressure as Sirius tries to push his prick in. Regulus finds himself pushed forwards, and then Sirius' voice is very close to his ear, saying "Oh god, oh god oh god-" a few tones higher than usual and taut with pleasure. Regulus feels too open, too out-of-control, but Sirius is just gradually edging himself in, and Regulus can feel Sirius' whole body shaking as it covers his.
"Reggie," Sirius says, quietly, and his hips twitch slightly as he speaks. And then he chokes a bit, followed by a long, tight silence, heavy with Sirius' slowing breaths and no movement. Regulus starts to tremble now as well. "Sorry," Sirius says eventually, and Regulus can hear the clench in his jaw and thinks, me, me, please, me, while Sirius repeats his apologies, "sorry, sorry, sorry."
"Please," Regulus finally manages to vocalise, and Sirius withdraws too quickly, a low, sharp pull of dull pain that Regulus secretly likes, even though his knees ache and he feels sore and horribly sticky.
Sirius quickly rolls him back over and bows his head to suck on him; two lovely thick sucks and Regulus comes, hard, down his brother's throat with a quiet yowling noise.
While Regulus gasps for air, brain swirling madly (and he doesn't want it to ever settle), Sirius crawls up and buries his face in Regulus' hair, tangling their bodies together. "Sorry," he says again, soft like he means it so, so much, "I didn't mean to."
Regulus turns his head a little, cups Sirius' cheek, and this time lets Sirius kiss him, even though he tastes strange. Regulus says, "Really good," his voice wobbling and he kisses harder.
"But I-shouldn't have, didn't mean to-" Sirius babbles, almost hyperventilating even as his lips continue to nip and kiss. "We shouldn't have."
Pleased to be the coherent one, for once, Regulus says, "But we did. I liked it," he adds, breathless. "He showed you that, didn't he?"
Sirius nods, head bobbing and his cheekbone jarring against Regulus'. "But-" he says, damp palms clasping Regulus' face before he leans in for another soft, desperate kiss.
"I don't care, anymore. Now, hush, tired," Regulus mumbles the last bit into Sirius' mouth. He can feel his own face start to slacken with the sudden exhaustion.
Sirius whispers, "but" and "Reggie" and "sorry", and Regulus says "hush" one more time through sleep-slow lips, before nuzzling in even closer and it starts to all blur together in his mind.
#
When he wakes up, Sirius is gone, and he's glad of that; not really ready to face him immediately, not while he's clammy with sleep and sore and uncomfortably sticky. Regulus showers carefully, and doesn't eat his breakfast despite his mother's glares. "If you won't eat, then go and wake Sirius," she says eventually, "Mr Malfoy will be here soon."
Regulus stomps back up the stairs, ready to fly at Sirius: he hates the idea of Mr Malfoy being here today. And then time seems to speed up, because Sirius isn't in his room, or in Regulus', and his trunk is gone. Kreacher is sent up to discover the reason for Regulus' howling scream, though he ignores Regulus, who has started angrily attacking Sirius' wardrobe with his fists, and just begins bustling about the room taking inventory, noticing the missing items that Regulus didn't; broomstick, school robes, lucky socks, transfiguration books; and then thunders back down the stairs squealing, "Mistress! Mistress!" as if it's the best worst news he's ever been lucky enough to deliver.
Regulus goes back to bed, face-down on the pillow on Sirius' side, thumb rubbing up and down the seam of the pillowcase. His mother shrieks and shrieks, her rage accompanied by his father's low, rumbling tones, constant and ineffectual.
The doorbell appears to chime unanswered, but when Regulus traipses downstairs ten minutes later, Lucius Malfoy is waiting in their father's study, face solemn, grey eyes piercing their way through to Regulus' private thoughts.
"You're too late," Regulus says bluntly, wishing he'd washed his face, "he's gone. Not coming back."
Malfoy looks almost sad, resigned. Disappointed, actually. "Go back to your wife," Regulus adds, with disgust, and that gets a laugh.
Another name burned out of the tapestry, and Regulus strokes the frayed hole, still warm around the edges with anger. He slumps to the floor and curls into himself.
What he wants, is Sirius back. Sirius from last night; afterwards, soft-eyed with guilt and love and lust. Frightened, and stroking Regulus' hair, his cheeks and neck, whispering sorry, sorry when he hadn't anything to be sorry for. Regulus would have tried harder to stay awake, tried harder to placate his brother. Because he never minded, not any of it, not at all.
He liked being the youngest, the cherub. He just wants Sirius back, but now there's a hole in the family tree, so it's never going to happen.
#
Regulus doesn't sleep that night, because Sirius is probably in James Potter's bed, and definitely not in his.
#
At school, Sirius doesn't look at Regulus anymore. He hates Regulus' friends and housemates with more passion than ever, whilst never meeting Regulus' eyes, because the silly type of kisses they always used to share were nothing, just like wanking together a few unmemorable times wasn't really important. But you aren't supposed to suck your brother's cock, or fuck him up the arse; slow and close-to-breaking careful, with your mouth pressed to the nape of his neck, gasping against his skin.
But Regulus does as he promised, keeps his parents on their toes now he's growing up and doesn't have a brother to do it for him anymore. His father has started to rely on him too much anyway, and his mother is just getting madder.
He isn't surprised, the summer he turns sixteen, to come down to breakfast and find Mr Malfoy waiting for him.
Author: kabeyk
Pairing: Sirius/Lucius, Sirius/Regulus
Rating: NC17
Warnings: Sirius is sixteen, and Regulus only fifteen, so a bit chan-ish. And incestuous, clearly.
Words: 8,000+
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: Prompt 64: Lucius/Sirius - Lucius has something Sirius wants or needs, perhaps a book that will help with the Animagi transformations. Lucius is willing to give him whatever this is on the stipulation that Sirius give him his virginity. Yeah, I definitely cheated a bit.
Thanks to wildestranger for reading this through. And I didn't have to bribe her at all. Ahem.
Summary: Regulus hadn't realised what a near thing it was, hadn't realised that 'final straw' meant just that: final. If Lucius Malfoy's crash course in good pureblood behaviour doesn't work, then Regulus doesn't like to think about what will happen.
Most Loved
The Last Straw, as Regulus starts referring to it, was, quite frankly, nothing spectacular. Blowing the house up, during one of their parents' dinner parties, in a ball of flames and sparkling motes of still-burning ash and debris - that would have been something, Regulus thinks, a little wistful, but sadly that isn't what happens. What Sirius actually did - on a rainy July day, once Regulus had adamantly refused to take his clothes off and accompany his brother in naked, wet, neighbour-shocking garden frolics - merely involved one of his mother's complex (expensive) anti-aging beauty treatments, and Regulus wonders why Sirius even bothered, though maybe he was just bored.
"Wow," Sirius says, wiggling his left hand in Regulus' face; his left hand which is currently wrapped dried-solid in soft linen bandages that Mrs Black likes to drape herself in about once a month in the pathetic hope that it tones her skin and gives it a youthful, purified glow. "Rock solid," Sirius adds happily, knocking his hard, grotesque, twisted lump of a half-curled fist playfully against the side of Regulus' head and then his shoulder. "Muggles fix broken bones like this, you know."
Regulus sighs and says, "She'll kill you," though Sirius is barely listening, staring instead in fascinated awe at the thin, fragrant bandages he has delicately twined around each of his fingers, tight around his palm and tapering off at the wrist.
Sirius sits outside their mother's bedroom, tapping on his left hand with the fingers of his right, a look of pure joy on his face as he listens to the hollow thunking sound it makes, all while she shrieks at him, her voice too high and strangely tight from the quickly-drying bandages holding down her chest and upper lip and jaw like a really effective straightjacket. Regulus shoots Sirius a nasty look every time he walks past, but Sirius just grins, his usual unthinking, gormless smile, and waves his hand in a monstrous way.
Later on, Regulus finds his brother sitting on his bed, still obsessively contemplating his hand, and Regulus feels compelled to say, "You are going to take that off at some point?" Sirius shrugs, stroking a finger in circles inside his own papery palm. "It'll get unhygienic," Regulus continues, before it hits him, "-oh god, they won't take it off for you, will they?"
"Could do it myself," Sirius sneers, though Regulus knows that such a harsh sneer means there's just enough self doubt lingering somewhere, "just wondering if it'd be worth lubing it up first; might be a good wank."
Regulus' face twists. "Don't be disgusting; it'll smell like mum."
Sirius contemplates him for a few slow seconds, eyes wide and grey with only a hint of a frown, before he casually punches Regulus in the stomach left-handed. Once Regulus has folded neatly in two and crumpled, gasping, to the floor, Sirius asks, "Why do you say things like that?" in a way that sounds as if he'd just really like to know.
Winded, Regulus writhes and struggles for air and is angry that someone as inexplicable as Sirius can suggest that he, Regulus, is the one that is odd in the head. He tries to say 'fuck off', but he only manages as far as "Fu-uhh-" before he has to croak an unearthly, groaning breath inwards.
"Did I hurt your belly?" Sirius asks, his voice not entirely without sympathy, and gets off the bed, crouches down and rests his right hand on the pale blue material of Regulus' robes, rubbing soft circles around his belly-button until Regulus can breathe again.
When Regulus has almost been lulled to sleep, flat on the wooden floor of Sirius' bedroom, by his own deep, grateful breaths and the warm comfort in his belly, Sirius spoils it by saying, "Anyway, you'd better go; I really have got to try this hand thing."
Dinner is awkward, what with Sirius' fork clanging down onto his plate every few seconds, and the way he's trying so hard not to laugh every time the cutlery slips from his frozen fingers. Regulus doesn't understand what's so funny, when his mother and father are, respectively, red and white with anger, but Sirius is probably already planning in his head how he'll describe this incident to James bloody Potter. Or maybe he's just amazingly happy, because wanking with a solid, dead, mummified hand is really, really brilliant.
Once dinner is thankfully done with and Regulus is safely ensconced in his bedroom, it's at least an hour and a half, possibly nearly two, before all the shouting stops, though Regulus pretends he's not counting. The word 'disobedient' is the most over-used this time, and that's almost funny, because if they wanted Sirius to be obedient then they'd have to get him brainwashed; get a new brain or a new Sirius.
It's quiet for a while, but Sirius stomps into Regulus' room when some new shouting starts up again. He no longer has a creepy, alien glove-thing on his left hand, though he claims he's kept the scorched pieces to remember it by. Regulus is already in bed and Sirius crawls in with him and places his shiny new left hand on the pillow between them. "Y'think my hand looks younger?" Sirius mumbles sleepily into the pillow.
Regulus settles closer and runs his fingers over the back of his brother's hand; incredibly silky skin stretched over long, smooth bones and tendons. "Feels younger."
"Mmf," Sirius agrees, and Regulus hates him for being able to sleep while their parents argue. When he turns Sirius' hand over to see if there's less wrinkles on his palm, he sees the angry red marks of a severing charm performed too close to skin, a burnt-pink line slicing along each finger, and he snuggles closer to his brother and pulls the sheets over their heads.
When Regulus wanders down for breakfast the next day, a tall, forbidding-looking man is standing in their hallway.
#
Regulus remembers the wedding. Two things; the long sleeves of his navy dress robes - the shudder that ran through him every time the velvet brushed any part of his skin, the itch at his neck and wrists from the constant rub of the circles of stiff lace. And cousin Cissy; so young and glowing and smiling, her white wedding robes flowing down into a long train, every part of her decorated with too much silk.
Sirius sat next to Regulus - wearing black like he was at school because he'd cunningly waited until the very last minute to hex his best dress robes full of holes - and Regulus tugged periodically at his sleeve, saying "Sirius, Sirius, isn't she amazing?" in complete awe, because she was, and he couldn't take his eyes off her.
"Not really," Sirius had grunted, and slouched lower in his seat.
"My wife'll be like that," Regulus had whispered, breath wet on Sirius' fluffy little ear. "She'll be perfect."
Sirius had snorted, laughed and laughed in barely-concealed snuffles, a few other guests turning to stare angrily at their pew at the back of the hall. "Be like a doll, will she?" he'd choked, tweaking the ruffles of lace nestled around Regulus' throat. "Sit on her throne every day, eating strawberry creams while the House Elves paint her toenails?" He was boring holes in Regulus with the wild look in his eyes.
Regulus tossed his hair at that, twisting his lips petulantly, fingers accidentally smoothing over the front of his hateful robes. "Why not?"
"Yeah, maybe," Sirius had conceded finally, sounding almost sad, "if you managed to con some poor bitch into it, yeah."
"You don't want to get married then?" Regulus asked, shocked. "Mum and Dad'll-"
"I know." Sirius had been very pink in the face, but had looked incredibly pleased with himself.
#
Regulus doesn't see Sirius for the whole day, well, a good six hours; a long time during the summer holidays when it's raining and both your parents are stormy-faced, painfully waiting for something. As if something is about to happen.
He tries to remember all he knows about Lucius Malfoy, but it isn't much; just the ostentatious wedding and his impossibly grand and neat family home. The awful, girlish white robes Regulus was made to wear last time they ate dinner at Cissy's and the way Mr Malfoy played the piano after the meal, all long fingers and fast-flowing notes.
Maybe the man is just teaching Sirius the piano, Regulus thinks, rather stupidly, though no-one plays the piano for six hours straight and without lunch. It doesn't take six hours to tell someone off (or beat them into submission, Regulus hopes), or explain familial duty and the responsibility of being the heir to a great pure-blood line, all that bollocks that makes their dad so angry when Sirius couldn't care less.
Hyperactive and lacking in basic concentration skills Sirius may be, but he's quick enough to realise that shutting the hell up would mean it was over so much faster. Except he does like to argue, when he thinks their parents are wrong so fucking bloody wrong and every time anyone mentions Sirius' schoolfriends, and maybe Mr Malfoy has taken to beating him, in the hope it might stop the screaming.
Regulus spends all day hiding in his room, pretending he's not worried - or hiding for that matter - and the strangest thing is that he hasn't heard any screaming, all day, from anyone. And he's waiting too, not for Sirius' redemption like his parents are, but for the final explosion, and he'll be disappointed, again, if it doesn't come.
#
Sirius flops into Regulus' bed that night, after a very late and silent and awkward family dinner, in which Sirius ate like a starved horse and no-one met anyone's eyes. There are no marks visible on Sirius' face or arms, during the meal or now, but Regulus immediately sets himself upon the buttons of Sirius' nightshirt to check him over.
Smooth white collarbone, good, shadows along bones - not bruises - and those two chest hairs that Sirius is so proud of, all still intact. "So how was it?" Regulus asks, pretending he wasn't up to anything odd and ignoring the real question, which was 'What was it?'
"Fine," Sirius says, sounding irritable, though that's likely more to do with the fact that Regulus has rested his thumb in Sirius' belly button while he leans over to check the left hip for injuries. "Reggie! Aw, you were all worried about me, weren't you?" Sirius' face bursts into that teasing, smug grin of his.
"No!" Regulus exclaims, accidentally squeezing Sirius' thigh so hard that his whole body jerks in pain. Because he hadn't been worried, not really.
#
Mrs Black decides to go shopping, in a disturbingly good mood that next morning, Kreacher bobbing at her heels. She promises good food for dinner, and hints at a present for Sirius if he continues to be well behaved and polite when Mr Malfoy visits. Regulus freezes; he hadn't even contemplated the possibility that the first time was only the beginning, and the idea of cousin Cissy's creepy, handsome husband regularly tutoring his brother fills him with an inexplicable forboding.
How stupid can she get? Regulus wonders at his mother thinking that after a few hours with some mad, blond, no-doubt inbred relative that Sirius is tame enough to be left alone with the run of the house.
"Come on," Sirius says joyfully, pulling Regulus out into the garden barely ten seconds after the floo flares down. "Show you what he taught me." And Regulus gapes as he's dragged outside, because not only has Mr Malfoy been teaching Sirius things, but Sirius has actually been learning. And enjoying it.
After much pointless faffing and dramatic introductions, Sirius turns sharply and points his wand at the plum tree in the centre of the lawn and mutters something short and incoherent at the same time as Regulus yelps "Sirius!" in a bit of a panic. The explosion, when it comes, is thankfully a let-down; soft and dull and wet, and all that's exploded is a single plum, the small stone dropping vertically to the grass and the wet flesh bursting directly outwards in all directions.
"Fuck," Regulus gasps, while his heartbeat is still racing and his blood rushes with relief that no-one is going to have to explain to mother where the plum tree went to, "that is brilliant." He flicks a sticky clump of plum off his sleeve.
Sirius crows, "I know!" the ecstatic grin practically splitting his face in half. "I know and I did it," and he whirls around again and bursts a few more plums in quick succession. "Brilliant. They never teach you the good stuff at school."
Regulus presses his lips together thoughtfully and then asks, "Does it only work on fruit?"
#
The next time Mr Malfoy is due to visit, Sirius is so restless with excitement that it's all Regulus can do not to punch him in the face just to calm him down. Or maybe he just wants to punch him in the face.
Pathetically, Regulus had been looking forward to the summer; spending time with Sirius, and only Sirius, since all of Sirius' schoolfriends were summarily banned from ever setting foot in Grimmauld Place ever again. And now he'd have to share with a grown-up who knew frightening, brilliant new spells and was so hideously wonderful that Sirius' knee jiggled incessantly at the breakfast table, however hard Regulus pressed down on Sirius' thigh with his palm.
#
Regulus is too taken up in the breathless thrill of Sirius grabbing him, pushing them into their father's study and pulling Regulus flush against his body. He digs his fingers hard into the sides of Sirius' ribcage, heaving in lungfuls of sweat from his brother's clammy neck and mutters, "What-"
"Shh, concentrating."
He can feel the clench of Sirius' jaw against his forehead, knows his face will be screwed up into that intense, tight expression. "Are we stealing whisky again?" he asks, as Sirius shivers a little against him. That had been good, the whisky, ignoring the screeching coming from downstairs while they giggled and took turns swigging from the bottle, slopping the spirit on Regulus' sheets and play-fighting and tickling.
"No," Sirius says shortly, and then his right arm, the one that isn't clutched protectively around Regulus' back and shoulders, swoops out and the room starts to spin; books and papers swirling and flapping like frightened, angry birds; the desk and chairs creaking and scraping across the floorboards as they try to follow. Regulus burrows closer into Sirius' body, hearing, above the papery tornado, Sirius' shaking, laughing breaths.
And then Sirius' arm lowers, and it all stops. After a few seconds, Regulus loosens his grip and dares to look up, peering over Sirius' shoulder, around the smooth line of his throat, and says, "Oh fuck."
There's four, pleasantly-quiet hours before their father decides he needs to use his study.
Regulus cowers, standing back a bit, trying to edge behind Sirius while their father - well, he never shouts, he isn't the type that needs to shout like their mother does. Instead, their dad is quietly angry, tiredly disappointed when he looks at Regulus and straight-mouthed and forceful while he explains to Sirius the sort of behaviour he expects from him.
"But Mr Malfoy taught it to me," Sirius says finally, and Regulus is momentarily in complete awe. He lets himself hope a little; that this is Sirius' genius way of getting rid of his ghastly tutor. But Sirius is just standing there, relaxed, smiling - the blatant cheek of him - and high on pissing off his father.
Their dad tilts his chin, a firm, proud gesture that Sirius has caught from him, and says, "He would not have wished you to-"
"Fine."
Sirius shoves Regulus jerkily in the back and herds him towards the door. On their way out, Sirius sweeps his right arm once more, and the books and papers lift and re-settle exactly how they were before. Regulus doesn't get the chance to catch his father's reaction.
#
Tired and unable to sleep, Regulus realises that this is what his parents had been waiting for this past week; for Lucius Malfoy to break Sirius, and Regulus wonders if this weird, contemplative mood of his brother's is the beginning of just that. Regulus whines a little, pushing himself close to Sirius' cheek, staring at Sirius' blank, impassive face; eyes closed but not asleep, his hands folded on top of the blankets.
"I'm fine," Sirius insists, again, "I just have a lot to think about," but since when did Sirius waste time thinking when he could be doing?
"Kiss me," Regulus whispers, because he likes kissing, and being kissed by, Sirius, because it was wrong, mum said so.
A few days before Sirius had started school for the first time, after the ritual burning and burying of Sirius' nasty new dress robes, and he'd been caught at it (with Regulus assisting) and made to sew name labels on all his school robes and pants and socks himself, by hand, as punishment, with Kreacher ending up curled in the pantry, wailing and grinding his teeth in frustration at Sirius' appalling needlework.
Regulus had sat next to Sirius, while Sirius frustratedly stabbed at a sock with his needle, and kissed Sirius' free hand; the palm, which, unsurprisingly, was sticky and gritty and smelled of skin and salt and dirt and things that were on fire. Their mother had caught him and dragged Regulus off and had shouted, as if nothing in the world angered her more than her two sons being so close and the fact that they would miss each other, when she was just glad to get rid of her naughtiest child until Christmas.
"You're fifteen, Regulus," Sirius says now, and he does have a point; Regulus has kissed two actual girls in the last year, but they weren't very good, and one of them told the girl he really liked that he was bad at it.
"So what?" Regulus widens his eyes to look younger, and somehow it works and Sirius sighs and leans over and kisses him on the mouth, muttering, "Brat." Regulus smiles through his pout and presses up into it, sniggering and licking a bit and trying to make it last.
"You need someone else to practice on," Sirius adds when he's pulled away, but Regulus can feel his brother smiling, and takes that as excuse enough to snuggle into his chest and listen to Sirius' heavy breaths.
#
Regulus hadn't realised what a near thing it was, hadn't realised that final straw meant just that: final. If Lucius Malfoy's crash course in good pureblood behaviour doesn't work, then Regulus doesn't like to think about what will happen.
Sirius is the naughty one, gets more attention because of it. Regulus is the youngest, the spare, the just-in-case; he's not the most-loved, he just gets coddled. He's the one their mother pets and cuddles and praises, the one Kreacher sneaks treats for, the one their father complains about Sirius to.
Sirius rails and shouts about it sometimes, about favouritism, forgetting that he could easily be the favourite if he wanted to, forgetting that he is everything they want him to be, except for obedient.
"When I'm gone," Sirius says, and Regulus doesn't know if he means murdered-by-Kreacher-for-shattering-every-jam-jar-in-the-pantry gone, or locked-in-the-cellar-until-he-learns-why-you-don't-call-Uncle-Rodolphus-a-monkey-fucker gone, "you'll keep on persecuting them, won't you?"
"The parents," Regulus asks, "yeah."
"Good boy," Sirius says with a wild grin, and kisses him on the lips right there in the kitchen.
#
"It feels like," Regulus says cautiously, eyes on the fuzzy-curly bit of hair next to Sirius' left ear, "like he's changing you." He paws frustratedly at Sirius' shoulder, because Sirius spent the day at Malfoy Manor, a very long day, or so it felt like to Regulus. And he's come back even stranger than usual, quiet, contemplative. It's so out of character, it hurts.
Sirius looks thoughtful at Regulus' comment, and not in a wicked, plotting sort of way - which is new and disturbing enough in itself, along with the careful way he bites his lip as he searches for the right word. "He's enigmatic," he settles on, "yeah. Talks a lot of bollocks; pride, purity, family, all that rot. Don't think he gets that I-that I'm not with him on that, really. Thinks he's got me; manipulating me, controlling me. But he isn't," Sirius finishes on insistently, head turning quickly on the pillow and he notices Regulus' dubious frown. "And he's teaching me things, all those wonderful spells."
Regulus says, "You stopped showing me," because he'd feel a lot better about it all if Sirius took him out into the garden again, "stopped showing me the things he teaches." He pouts at Sirius, because he has every right to be suspicious; if suspicious is the right word, and 'jealous' wouldn't be more appropriate.
Sirius nods, still too vague and dreamy about the eyes, his smile too mild before he abruptly shifts and disappears under the sheets. Regulus tenses automatically as his nightshirt is shoved up, but instead of the blunt tingling pressure of Sirius' wand and a nasty muttered spell, it's just Sirius' mouth Regulus feels, pushed soft to his belly.
"Don't-" Regulus says, brightly angry at being fobbed off, but he isn't; there's no wet, blurting raspberry blown against his belly; he's just being kissed. Sirius doesn't stop anyway, lips dry and gentle and his fingers little spots of sweaty heat on Regulus' waist.
It tickles a bit: Regulus giggles, stomach muscles quivering, and Sirius sniggers against his skin in reply and then, "Shh, let me concentrate," which brings Regulus' laughter up short.
"Mr Malfoy taught you this?" he asks stiffly, scared and incredulous.
Sirius says "No, silly," with more sniggering, so Regulus relaxes as the kissing gets wetter and a bit harder and less ticklish. It's the most bizarre thing, of course; Sirius nipping at the skin on his hips and abdomen, licking and huffing long breaths like he's really contented doing this.
Regulus is busy thinking about how weird it is, so it's slightly too long before he notices how warm and nice it's making him feel. "Sirius," he hisses warningly, because his cock is, rather embarrassingly, prodding Sirius in the throat.
"Shh," Sirius says again, and then his lips are on the head of Regulus' cock, pressing it in hard to Regulus' belly with his firm kisses. "Shh now," he adds, and then the next sound he makes is more of a gruff 'mmm', and then his lips are wrapped around and he's sucking softly.
Regulus doesn't bother to shove him away; Sirius always gets what he wants, and anyway, Regulus doesn't want him to stop. Sirius moves slowly, hands stroking up and down Regulus' hips while his head bobs and his tongue slides, wet and cushiony under Regulus' cock.
Regulus eventually manages to whine, "Stop," when he feels the tension and pleasure winding too tightly and he must be barely five seconds away, but Sirius takes one last, long suck on him and Regulus cries out quietly, the muscles in his thighs tensing rigid as he comes.
After, Sirius stays down for a bit, licking at Regulus' belly again, maybe to clean the taste from his tongue. "Sirius," Regulus pleads, the name suddenly feeling strange in his mouth, though probably not as strange as it is for Sirius. Inexplicably, Sirius comes up grinning carelessly, as if he expects a Wow, that was brilliant, you must teach me too, instead of the mostly appalled look Regulus can feel on his own face.
"Good at that, aren't I?" Sirius laughs. He flops onto his back, head thrown back on the pillow, and it takes nearly ten seconds before Regulus realises what he's doing with his hand, and now it's definitely this that's the sickest part of it all.
Words don't come, so Regulus can't say Do that in your own damn bed, and maybe that would be a bit rude under the circumstances. He watches anyway; Sirius' eyes closed, mouth loose and slightly open and almost smiling. Sirius' breaths get fast very quickly, the movement of his arm under the sheets speeding up too. And he's still beautiful, even in this; beautiful even when he's wanking off in his brother's bed, eyes tight shut and lashes shivering as he dreams of Mr Malfoy's lean body, that shining blond hair, his large, grateful cock and whatever encouraging words he mutters when he's fucking the mouths of young boys.
Sirius' jaw clenches and something breaks inside Regulus, as Sirius' eyes flash open, pupils dilated, and the jerks of his hand slow to a stop.
Eventually, after Sirius has rubbed his fingers dry on his own stomach, he turns his head to the side and says, "You watched me," a hint of a question in his voice, the usual tilt of the head and a Why would you do that?
"I saw you thinking about him," Regulus says, angry, but Sirius laughs and kisses him, and laughs more when he gets pushed away in disgust.
#
Regulus is a bit embarrassed the next morning. Okay, not just a bit, more like all-consuming appalled, with nervous twitching hands and not looking anyone in the eye, and at some point he'll really have to learn to hide these things, because at fifteen he's still the worst liar ever in existence and both of his parents are giving him disturbed, suspicious looks over the breakfast table.
"He did teach you that," Regulus says in low, angry voice when he finally gets Sirius alone.
Sirius says, "Don't be daft," with a careless flick of his hands, and turns away like he isn't obviously lying. Which he is, Regulus knows he is, but he'll hardly run to his parents and say-Say what: that Mr Malfoy is teaching Sirius… bad things? That won't happen.
"Oh, but he showed me this brilliant specific severing charm," Sirius continues and tugs Regulus out into the garden again. In the sunshine, he turns and wordlessly slices the heads off every last one of their mother's beloved black roses in one clean, neat movement, the surrounding foliage untouched. He stoops low and sweeps one up from the dirt, handing the broken bloom to Regulus from down on one knee.
Regulus takes it from him awkwardly; prickly stem and glossy black petals that are soft like silk. "She loves these, she'll kill you." Sirius has always gloried in breaking their mother's favourite things.
"No she won't," Sirius insists with a toss of his shining hair. "'Long as I'm being a good boy for Lucius, she'd let me get away with murder." His smile, his eyes, are a little too mad, and Regulus watches him with wide eyes; there were so many things wrong with that sentence that he doesn't know where to start.
Regulus knows, now, exactly what it is being a 'good boy' entails and that's horrifying. But mostly he's jealous at the soft, affectionate way Sirius says 'Lucius'.
#
"He's beautiful, isn't he," Sirius sighs a few nights later, happy and wriggly as he cuddles down in Regulus' bed.
Like a silly twittering first year with a crush, and it makes Regulus so angry. He doesn't bother to ask 'Who?' because, who else? "If you like your girls really girly," he snaps, "and obscenely blond, and, and, foppish." He doesn't completely know what 'foppish' means, but it sounds good.
Sirius moans "Mmm," really enjoying the word 'obscene'. He turns onto his side: Regulus can see out of the corner of his eye that he's being watched, and Sirius' face has gone a bit serious, and then Sirius says quietly, "Don't really like girls," as if it isn't an awful, terrible and wrong, so, so wrong thing to say.
"Suddenly you don't like girls?" Regulus says, eyes still fixed on the elaborate plaster-moulding that covers the ceiling. "But you did before. You've kissed girls?"
"No, why would I?" he asks, as if kissing girls was a ridiculous thing for a teenage boy to do.
"But." Regulus panics, quietly. He's kissed more girls than his older brother, who should have done more, because he's the eldest and clearly the beautiful one. His brother, who is, suddenly, some sort of poof, and lying in bed with him, and-His brain stutters to a stop when he thinks of that, that thing, a couple of nights ago. Eventually he gasps, "But you've kissed other boys-I mean, boys; you've kissed boys?"
Regulus feels Sirius shrug against the mattress. "James lets me, sometimes. But he likes girls, really." He sounds a little wistful.
Disturbing, definitely. Regulus could have gone without that mental image; Sirius' scruffy, annoying, evil best friend, especially recently, with that weird new nickname Sirius has started using for him, heading all the letters he sends to James with it, and now it sounds like it's something dirty. Yuck.
"Mum and dad'll kill you," Regulus points out unnecessarily, just to have something to say. It's practically his catchphrase anyway. He finally dares to turn and look at Sirius, who's staring at him, wide-eyed and thoughtful, which Regulus doesn't understand, because surely Sirius should be a bit more worried?
No wonder it's so much weirder for Sirius when Regulus asks for a kiss.
#
This, he knows, is just pathetic, his eyes level with the crack in the heavy curtains, elbows uncomfortable on the hard window-ledge.
They're duelling in the garden - so Sirius doesn't break anything, because he duels like a whirlwind, like a hurricane gusting through, shattering everything in the room - carefully circling each other, tension sharp in the bright sunshine. They look impressive; Sirius, at sixteen, nearly as tall as his beautiful tutor and at least as handsome, dark hair loose in front of his eyes, even as he watches his enemy intently. For a second, even Malfoy looks young behind his white-blond hair, if not all that innocent; Regulus often forgets, that for all the man's ambition and riches, that he is young, that he married Cissy straight out of school.
Not that his tender age excuses any of this, though.
Usually, every movement of Sirius' is casual and careless, even when he fights, but now he's alert and precise and that's something else about him that's been changing recently. He's on edge. Regulus would have bet his life on Mr Malfoy being a tricky, underhanded bugger, and suddenly he's scared that this will be a dirty, dangerous fight.
And then it starts, and this is also like a hurricane, and an earthquake and a lightning storm all in one. That miniature whirlwind charm is nothing compared to this: light flashes and bursts, trees and plants tremble and break, and all in silence as the two dark shapes in the middle of it all swish their arms and wands.
When the dust settles, of course it's Sirius flat out on the grass, Malfoy tall and imposing as he looms, grandly bent at the waist, above him, wand pushed up under Sirius' vulnerable jaw, just where it's soft. Regulus doesn't breathe as he watches, letting Sirius' chest-heaving gasps do it for him. Regulus is scared for him, for the whole minute they stay in position.
And then Malfoy throws his wand aside and snaps down to his knees, hand instead of wand cupping Sirius' neck. He mutters something that it would be impossible for Regulus to hear, but Sirius doesn't move, chest still pumping hard and eyes wild and beady.
Mr Malfoy bends closer and kisses him.
Their parents are out anyway, and Regulus is supposed to be elsewhere too, but it's still obscene; kissing your pupil, a relative, five years your junior, in broad daylight. More obscene is the eager way Sirius jerks his hips and face upwards, hands curling gratefully into the grass and dirt.
#
Malfoy looks so silly sat at their dining table, his shock of white hair tastelessly out of place amongst all the black. He looks like a caricature, full lips and sharp, expressive grey eyes, his long pianist's fingers as they caress the silverware and the stem of his wine glass.
What Regulus hates the most is the way his father looks so serious tonight, that he takes Mr Malfoy so seriously. Even the way his mother is, vaguely, in her own deeply unusual way, sort-of flirting with the younger man, plenty of We're so grateful to you and I'm sure Sirius would love to hear more about your work, as she toys with her food and her eyes flicker smugly to her eldest son.
Dad asks lots of questions, strange, veiled ones that seem to be more about the accompanying facial expressions - delicately raised eyebrows, strange curves of lips - than the actual words, and the slow conversation is full of careful inflections of tone and studied pauses. Sirius hunches over his plate and gobbles his food, presumably to prove he isn't listening avidly, when he really is; soaking in the names and places, taking note of what it was that father read in yesterday's paper that was very interesting, of which Ministry staff are hinted to be incompetent, and who it is that makes Mr Malfoy smile with only half his mouth and nod almost imperceptibly.
Wishing people would just say what they bloody mean, Regulus tolerates it all, even the near-worshipful glow in Sirius' eyes when Lucius praises Sirius' intelligence and talents. Creepy, very creepy, Regulus thinks, shuddering, knife squealing against his plate as he slices his potatoes. It's almost as if their father knows; knows that Sirius will never marry, that beautiful blond men are the perfect way to distract their wayward son.
Before, Regulus hadn't spent enough time with Lucius Malfoy to judge for himself, and dinner doesn't really help. He can see it - how graceful the man is, how attractive - but he just doesn't feel it, and he's painfully angry at Sirius for being stupid enough to fall for it.
After the meal, Mr Malfoy and their father retire to the study for drinks and cigars, while Regulus is trapped in the sitting room with their mum gushing over Malfoy's person and manners, as if he were a potential suitor for one of her sons rather than her eldest's sleazy, paedophilic tutor. Sirius shifts restlessly, tinkling his spoon around his coffee cup and fiddling with the biscuits until Mr Malfoy comes back through to say his goodbyes and requests a private word with Sirius before he leaves.
Regulus times them, the hollow ticks and thunks from the mantelpiece clock, and it’s definitely long enough.
#
"Are you in love with him?" Regulus asks, even though he knows it's a childish, simplistic way of looking at it. The man is their cousin's husband, for god's sake, and you can't be in love with your own relatives, though for some reason his strange brain chooses that moment to remember Sirius under his bedclothes, his hot wet mouth sliding slowly up and down, as if that is remotely the same thing.
Sirius pouts at him, half amused, those same soft red lips. "Reggie," he says, slow and measured, "he thinks it's okay to kill, sometimes, if it's someone who's not important. I'm… fairly sure he's trying to recruit me to be one of his evil pureblooded minions and help him take over the world, so, you know." He shrugs, as if it's nothing. "You just can't love people like that."
It's sort of fascinating, in an awful, twisted way, how Sirius is in thrall to the man yet simultaneously afraid of him, hating him. Regulus watches the mad edge in Sirius' eyes; on some level he's scared, of Lucius Malfoy, of what he could do, and it pleases Regulus. Not that he was jealous, except he is, so very much.
"Come on," Sirius whispers, and then leans to kiss him. Regulus relaxes, arms wrapping easily and tightly around Sirius' narrow waist, Sirius' hands holding his shoulders.
#
They lie out in the garden, yellow sunshine and green grass, bright colours confusing Regulus because it feels like he's spent the entire summer creeping through the dark, moody house.
Sirius is manic today - there was shouting at breakfast - and is squirming about on the grass because he's finding 'still' too difficult. Regulus' stomach churns, unable to not think about his brother lying there, easy and far-too-willing as Lucius Malfoy assaulted his mouth; the smug way Malfoy enjoyed it, pressing down and letting Sirius fuck upwards against his thigh.
"How much do you think she hates me?" Sirius asks, and that wasn't what Regulus had thought they would be talking about at all. The morning's argument had been unbearably familiar, same old, same old, and their mum hadn't really known what to do with it, hadn't punished Sirius in case it was just a small blip, soon ironed out with a bit more work with the amazing Mr Malfoy.
Regulus ignores it and says, "You've been extra insane, since last night," because he wants to know what Malfoy made Sirius do this time. Regulus hates the idea of Sirius having sex. He wonders if he'd be less uncomfortable if it was an older woman Sirius was having an affair with, if it was showy, sneering, beautiful cousin Narcissa tutoring him. But then, it could hardly make Regulus any more jealous, could it?
"Mmm, yeah, yeah," is all Sirius replies with, and when Regulus turns to look, Sirius' eyes are very bright and one of his arms is jiggling impatiently. Regulus hates Sirius like this; pent up and trying to escape his own skin, because there's nothing to be done that helps.
"It was worth it, though," Sirius says eventually, voice strangely broken and stilted, "all of it."
Regulus doesn't understand, the words or the past tense, so he just slips his palm into Sirius', grips firmly to stop the shaking. Sirius squeezes back, so hard that Regulus whimpers, and they both just lie there holding hands.
#
Sirius breezes into Regulus' room that night, still fastening the buttons on his nightshirt, all frazzled energy and crazed hair. Regulus is caught up with thinking, You're so beautiful, watching his brother's smoothly muscled legs (nothing like Regulus' own), his elegant neck, his fragile wrists; and he only notices the tight, red-flowering bruises - too dark to be hidden by his thin shirt - once Sirius has kneeled up on the bed, bouncing a little.
"What?" Sirius asks, careless, full of cherubic innocence even with deep tooth-marks across his chest and belly.
"What," Regulus says, a snarl, "did you let him do?" and Sirius' anger flares and he dives for Regulus, jams him down hard against the mattress and kisses him, kisses him, not silly, sloppy childish kisses like usual, but fierce and serious.
Sirius is on him, heavy and solid, hands holding him still by his cheeks. "Stop asking," Sirius says around Regulus' tongue, "if you don't want to know," his hips bony as the press into Regulus'.
Maybe I do want to know, Regulus thinks, scared, mirroring Sirius' actions out in the garden with Mr Malfoy and pressing himself desperately up into Sirius' mouth. "This is-" he chokes out, trying to say wrong or ridiculous, but it feels horribly lovely, and before he knows it his hands are rubbing at Sirius' waist, feeling his soft skin, hot through his thin nightshirt.
Sirius groans a low sort of sound, "ummn," fingers lower now, thumbs stroking up under Regulus' bare thighs, pulling his legs apart. Regulus knows that he must have got hard, very hard, with Sirius' lips still crushing down on his. He can feel that Sirius is hard, right against his hip, and then Sirius shifts a bit further and their cocks are touching.
"But," Regulus says, "Sirius," and Sirius pulls his mouth off to look down at him and Regulus' heart thumps even faster as they watch each other.
"Sorry," Sirius whispers, head tilting his lips close to Regulus' ear, "sorry." He starts to pull off, peeling their clammy skin apart, sticky legs, bare from having hitched their shirts up.
"Yeah," Regulus agrees, though he thinks this is a lot less his fault. Above him, crouched on all fours, Sirius' arms tremble and his eyes are still sharp and wild, lustful and probably only a bit sorry. His prick continues to stick right out, wanting, and Regulus tries not to stare, though it's weirdly beautiful, that it's just for him.
Sirius sighs. He kisses Regulus clumsily on the cheek, then again more gently, trailing his lips around to Regulus' ear and then jaw. "What," Regulus asks, just as Sirius confesses, "I let him-"
One of Regulus' hands has somehow migrated back up to Sirius' waist, and the nails curl in, already knowing, already angry, as he says, "Let him what?"
Sirius curls down, rests his forehead to Regulus' chest, and Regulus feels exposed: Sirius is still between his spread legs, and Regulus is throbbing with how much he needs to come. "Are you still jealous?" Sirius asks, breath soft and hot over Regulus' cock. His hands go to Regulus' thighs again, sliding under, kneading the flesh steadily.
"Wasn't, wasn't," Regulus insists, wriggling against Sirius' fingertips, liking it far too much until one finger slips up too far. "Ah-"
"It was good, really good," Sirius tells him firmly, and there must have been a wordless charm in there somewhere, because his finger starts sliding easily and further in.
Regulus is silent, because Sirius is right; it feels so good; hot little circles of fingertip tickling him in weirdly exciting ways. He closes his eyes, to hide himself, and to hide from the look in Sirius' grey eyes; hungry and a little frightening as he slowly, carefully, massages inside Regulus.
"Roll over," Sirius says suddenly, up and back on his knees now, staring down, stiff cock bobbing with each thrust of his fingers. "Go on."
He does, pressing his hips down into the bed for a couple of grateful seconds before Sirius lifts him.
Sirius mumbles "Hush," holding Regulus' hips on his lap, palms sticky on Regulus' arse as his thumbs rub their way inwards, and only then does it start to hurt; a thicker feeling and too much pressure as Sirius tries to push his prick in. Regulus finds himself pushed forwards, and then Sirius' voice is very close to his ear, saying "Oh god, oh god oh god-" a few tones higher than usual and taut with pleasure. Regulus feels too open, too out-of-control, but Sirius is just gradually edging himself in, and Regulus can feel Sirius' whole body shaking as it covers his.
"Reggie," Sirius says, quietly, and his hips twitch slightly as he speaks. And then he chokes a bit, followed by a long, tight silence, heavy with Sirius' slowing breaths and no movement. Regulus starts to tremble now as well. "Sorry," Sirius says eventually, and Regulus can hear the clench in his jaw and thinks, me, me, please, me, while Sirius repeats his apologies, "sorry, sorry, sorry."
"Please," Regulus finally manages to vocalise, and Sirius withdraws too quickly, a low, sharp pull of dull pain that Regulus secretly likes, even though his knees ache and he feels sore and horribly sticky.
Sirius quickly rolls him back over and bows his head to suck on him; two lovely thick sucks and Regulus comes, hard, down his brother's throat with a quiet yowling noise.
While Regulus gasps for air, brain swirling madly (and he doesn't want it to ever settle), Sirius crawls up and buries his face in Regulus' hair, tangling their bodies together. "Sorry," he says again, soft like he means it so, so much, "I didn't mean to."
Regulus turns his head a little, cups Sirius' cheek, and this time lets Sirius kiss him, even though he tastes strange. Regulus says, "Really good," his voice wobbling and he kisses harder.
"But I-shouldn't have, didn't mean to-" Sirius babbles, almost hyperventilating even as his lips continue to nip and kiss. "We shouldn't have."
Pleased to be the coherent one, for once, Regulus says, "But we did. I liked it," he adds, breathless. "He showed you that, didn't he?"
Sirius nods, head bobbing and his cheekbone jarring against Regulus'. "But-" he says, damp palms clasping Regulus' face before he leans in for another soft, desperate kiss.
"I don't care, anymore. Now, hush, tired," Regulus mumbles the last bit into Sirius' mouth. He can feel his own face start to slacken with the sudden exhaustion.
Sirius whispers, "but" and "Reggie" and "sorry", and Regulus says "hush" one more time through sleep-slow lips, before nuzzling in even closer and it starts to all blur together in his mind.
#
When he wakes up, Sirius is gone, and he's glad of that; not really ready to face him immediately, not while he's clammy with sleep and sore and uncomfortably sticky. Regulus showers carefully, and doesn't eat his breakfast despite his mother's glares. "If you won't eat, then go and wake Sirius," she says eventually, "Mr Malfoy will be here soon."
Regulus stomps back up the stairs, ready to fly at Sirius: he hates the idea of Mr Malfoy being here today. And then time seems to speed up, because Sirius isn't in his room, or in Regulus', and his trunk is gone. Kreacher is sent up to discover the reason for Regulus' howling scream, though he ignores Regulus, who has started angrily attacking Sirius' wardrobe with his fists, and just begins bustling about the room taking inventory, noticing the missing items that Regulus didn't; broomstick, school robes, lucky socks, transfiguration books; and then thunders back down the stairs squealing, "Mistress! Mistress!" as if it's the best worst news he's ever been lucky enough to deliver.
Regulus goes back to bed, face-down on the pillow on Sirius' side, thumb rubbing up and down the seam of the pillowcase. His mother shrieks and shrieks, her rage accompanied by his father's low, rumbling tones, constant and ineffectual.
The doorbell appears to chime unanswered, but when Regulus traipses downstairs ten minutes later, Lucius Malfoy is waiting in their father's study, face solemn, grey eyes piercing their way through to Regulus' private thoughts.
"You're too late," Regulus says bluntly, wishing he'd washed his face, "he's gone. Not coming back."
Malfoy looks almost sad, resigned. Disappointed, actually. "Go back to your wife," Regulus adds, with disgust, and that gets a laugh.
Another name burned out of the tapestry, and Regulus strokes the frayed hole, still warm around the edges with anger. He slumps to the floor and curls into himself.
What he wants, is Sirius back. Sirius from last night; afterwards, soft-eyed with guilt and love and lust. Frightened, and stroking Regulus' hair, his cheeks and neck, whispering sorry, sorry when he hadn't anything to be sorry for. Regulus would have tried harder to stay awake, tried harder to placate his brother. Because he never minded, not any of it, not at all.
He liked being the youngest, the cherub. He just wants Sirius back, but now there's a hole in the family tree, so it's never going to happen.
#
Regulus doesn't sleep that night, because Sirius is probably in James Potter's bed, and definitely not in his.
#
At school, Sirius doesn't look at Regulus anymore. He hates Regulus' friends and housemates with more passion than ever, whilst never meeting Regulus' eyes, because the silly type of kisses they always used to share were nothing, just like wanking together a few unmemorable times wasn't really important. But you aren't supposed to suck your brother's cock, or fuck him up the arse; slow and close-to-breaking careful, with your mouth pressed to the nape of his neck, gasping against his skin.
But Regulus does as he promised, keeps his parents on their toes now he's growing up and doesn't have a brother to do it for him anymore. His father has started to rely on him too much anyway, and his mother is just getting madder.
He isn't surprised, the summer he turns sixteen, to come down to breakfast and find Mr Malfoy waiting for him.