dedgulung "vexed italicizing trouble magnet" black (regulus) wrote in blurred_history, @ 2008-07-12 08:52:00 |
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The nerve of the woman! The absolute bloody nerve! As had been pointed out to Sirius repeatedly over the last six months, he was going to be a legal adult very soon and that thing that masqueraded as a mother was still treating him like he was a toddler. He was fully capable of dressing himself, sorting out his own hair and forming his own opinions. Unless her calling in life was to severely piss him off, surely she had better things to do than suffocate him. He'd told himself over and over 'just one more year' and then he'd have some control over his own life. One more year and he could move out and not have to deal with this on a day to day basis. But it was never going to be that simple, was it? Tonight was just a perfect example. It was never going to stop. He could be thirty and married and have a couple of ankle-biters and she'd still be interfering in his life. Not just little things but big, giant things like who he associated with, what his children's names were going to be, where he'd live...it would never end. Had it taken a blazing row - one of many like it over the course of the last year - for him to realise that? Maybe he just thought he could handle it. That he was not his little brother and that he could handle saying no and putting his foot down. Maybe it had taken tonight for him to realise that being on par with screaming at as much as she could at him wasn't a good thing. Maybe about the time the furniture had started to fly and informed opinions had turned into yelled insults, he'd realised that given another thirty years like that, he could end up just like her. The thought hit him like a ton of bricks and he almost physically gagged on the thought that all that anger could turn him into something he despised. He was so adamant to get his own way all the time and his own life, his own children (the poor bastards) would end up suffering the screwed up relationship he had. There was a vicious cycle in this family and suddenly, it was incredibly clear that he couldn't go on like this. If he did, it would never end. The only option was breaking the cycle. It didn't help that they were at each others throats constantly and considering the fact he found himself slamming every door on the weight up to his room to let his mother (or more likely, Kreacher) deal with the damage to the parlour. At this rate, they'd end up killing each other - literally. The walls were suddenly too confining and he needed to get out of here. He needed to just go! This last decision coincided with him slamming the bedroom door so hard that it sprung back open. It didn't matter. It isn't as if their father would give a damn and his mother was already furious with him. He let out a noise of frustration and resisted the urge to stamp his feet, finding it more logical that he try to find his bag than ruin his room too. Calming thoughts, he reminded himself. Just think about what she's going to do when she realises his posters have a permanent sticking charm on them. While shouting and the slamming doors were hardly a rarity in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place as of late, the booming crack shook Regulus from his thoughts. Open in front of him was a spellbook from his father's library -- a text that, although had held his attention just seconds before, was suddenly the least of his concerns. He had no idea what the quarrel was about. It was typically something ridiculous Sirius had done (or hadn't, for that matter) for the sake of irritating their parents, and it was growing very old, suffering the arguments as a bystander. He loathed the fighting and the discord, the shouting and the tension that was ever-present in what was supposed to be the safety of their home. It wasn't fair for Sirius to prance about, stirring up trouble when he was aging to the point that he ought to be taking responsibility for his actions. Nearly seventeen -- even Regulus was only a year from being of age, and he knew how to behave, so why couldn't Sirius? Resigning himself to the fact that he wasn't going to be able to focus now that his mind was reeling, Regulus stood up from his bed, walking to his door and peering out into the hallway. There was something eerie and unsettling about the shuffling he could hear coming from Sirius's wide open door. Or perhaps it was the fact that the door wasn't closed at all. It was with quiet, padding footsteps that he approached his brother's door, pausing at the frame and looking about the room with a crinkled nose. The colours were painfully bright and bold, scarlet and gold as a stark contrast to the rest of their house. Keeping his eyes away from the photographs and unfavourably-coloured bed curtains and posters, Regulus instead focused his attention on Sirius, his eyebrows furrowing in something that could have been annoyance, could have been exasperation, could have been an expression of resign. "One might get the idea you're in a bad mood or something of the sort with the way you're slamming doors about the house," Regulus said quietly, an unspoken question of what happened subtly tinging the edges of his words. Sirius made a noise of complaint; had someone been in here cleaning up again? He left it like this because he liked it like this. Just another liberty taken away by a cruel and unjust system. He was so preoccupied that (though he would never admit it) he had not noticed his brother in the door. Sometimes it was hard to tell if Regulus was actually in the house or not. It wasn't as if he left a lot but he had his own wierd little friends, didn't he? Sometimes he went over to their homes to they could be wierd together. Alas, no. He was home, he had noticed and was masquerading as someone with a sense of humour. "You're so funny. When did you get so funny." He didn't bother looking up, finding the bag with a triumphant "Aha!" He wasn't really thinking much beyond 'just pack a bag and leave' so finding the bag suddenly felt like a huge accomplishment. He shoved it on the bed and went to the clothes, trying to see what he would actually wear. So much of it could just be left behind. So much of it just wasn't worth it. "Either come in and shut the door or go put your nose back in a book." Sirius snapped at him, glancing at the door. The last thing he really wanted was that arse kissing elf coming and screaming bloody murder about this. He started with his shirts, shoving them into the bag without bothering to fold them. Wrinkles weren't high on his list of evils and in three weeks or so, he would be able to just fix it without people moaning about taking magic for granted. It was when Regulus noticed the travel bag in his brother's hands that the unsettled feeling fully formed. Not bothered in the least by Sirius's order (nor his snipping remark), he remained perfectly still in the doorway, watching Sirius move about the room as his own furrowed eyebrows were complemented with a pursed mouth. He did not want to ask what Sirius was doing. He did not want to acknowledge what Sirius was doing. Sticking his chin up very slightly, his eyes the only betrayal of his uncertainty, he continued, "I thought you ought to know that making a ruckus is not only unnecessary, but quite disturbing to those carrying about their own business." "Then you'll be glad to know I'm not going to be disturbing you again any time soon." It probably came out a lot more venomous than he meant it to but Sirius was not only in a bad mood, but in a rush. People usually got hurt when he was rushed and pissed off and he made a note to deal with it later, which he usually then promply forgot about. He pulled out another shirt and turned his head to the side, trying to decide if it was worth bringing or not. Was it a little too much on the poncey side? One way to know for sure. "Do you like this?" He asked, before throwing the shirt on the bed in favour of finding his school things. He'd need those. Magazines, music, possibly photographs...clearly he had acculated a lot of crap in his 'enlightened' years. He huffed and went under his bed; maybe he'd put his homework there. He couldn't face doing more homework after this. "That's a peculiar thing to say, coming from someone who not only lives here, but can't seem to keep quiet for the life of himself, either." Regulus's voice remained soft and even as he once again discarded Sirius's following question. It did not matter that he had ignored it, really, as the way Sirius had tossed it aside suggested he did not care that much about Regulus's opinion on the shirt in the first place, but he felt quite suddenly as though he was treading on foreign ground. And he hated uncertainty. "I guess then it's only a problem while I'm under this roof; I don't intend to be for much longer." Sirius flashed him a quick, sarcastic smile that was entirely over-sweet. He wrapped some of his photographs up so they wouldn't break in the bag and started placing them in. He didn't want to over pack but it felt strange deciding what to keep and what not to. There was a knot in his stomach as if the words were beginning to hit him but he tried to brush it off with more things that he needed to bring. He needed to push the thoughts away; he couldn't go through with this if he thought about it rationally so it was simpler to ignore it and decide what he wanted, if not what he needed. A swooping feeling like missing a step on stairs swirled harshly through Regulus's body; his already straight and posh posture went rigid. That was a comment more difficult to ignore, a glaring sign of his brother's intentions, no matter how suggestive the packing itself had been. What felt like a thousand thoughts wrestled in his brain: You're leaving? What do you mean, 'you don't intend to be for much longer'? What happened? You're not serious, right? The suspicion formerly masquerading as ignorance shed its disguise, and something of a panic began to brew beneath the calm. "You can't go," Regulus stated as matter-of-factly as he could manage, pushing down that stricken feeling and twisting th bottom of his sleeve into the grip of his fingers -- a telltale, time and again tic of self assurance in discomfort or nervousness. Sirius had to be joking. It had to be the least funny joke imaginable, but it had to be a joke. Sirius hmphed irritably; there was nothing that got on his nerves more than being told what he could or shouldn't do. "Watch me," He replied snidely, trying to quicken the pace so the adenalin he was feeling wouldn't leave him before he was already outside the door. Those beginnings of nerves he was starting to feel that maybe they would try and stop him - or worse, what if they didn't? What if it really had gotten to the point where they just didn't care if he left? They had a perfectly good heir right here so maybe they just didn't care anymore? He snorted mentally; that was assuming that they'd cared to begin with and that was assuming a lot. An heir was simply another posession to be treated as such. That sent a new wave of anger through him and he began shoving things in with a little more conviction than before. On one hand, he didn't want there to be another scene with his mother (or Merlin forbid, his father actually do something) because it would be angry and unpleasant and he could end up cursing the old hag once and for all. On the other, if they did notice and said nothing, that pretty much said that they never gave a damn about him as a person. Maybe it'd been foolish to think they had ever thought otherwise. A business arrangement for a marriage was bound to leave any children from it as mere assets. "I should have done this a long time ago," He half-muttered to himself, drowning out the confusion. "You..." The words were caught momentarily in Regulus's throat, and he shook his head to try and clear the cloud. Reason. Sirius had to see reason. Leaving wasn't necessary. There was still time to change, was there not? He just wasn't trying hard enough, and if he could just try -- "You cannot just leave, Sirius. You have -- you have responsibilties, and you can't seriously be considering this. I mean, you are planning to come back, aren't you?" he asked, the words stumbling out of his mouth. "What could possibly be that bad, and you are -- you are being ridiculous." The words held more of a snap to them, a panic rising steadily further behind his determinedly even voice -- but even with determination, to hide such inflections was a trick not always dependable. But he needed to fix this. Sirius needed to realise he was being utterly foolish, that he could not throw this away. He could not just -- abandon his family. It was not meant to work that way, and Sirius simply needed to understand that. He could. Sirius stopped for a second and considered it, very aware of his heart beat going slightly faster in his ears. "No. I don't think I am coming back." He said evenly. It felt strange to say it aloud, though of course it had been lurking in his head for a while. It was almost like betraying a part of himself that he tended to keep private, when not with his best friends. It wasn't that he wasn't honest with his brother, just honesty from a different point of view. He was still a naive child, after all. "If I come back, I'll have responsibilities and have to live a life I don't want." He sat down on the bed and shrugged. "I hate them. I hate them and hate this house. If I stay, I'll end up a raving lunatic like mum or end up hating myself and my life and everything to do with it like dad." He sighed and shrugged. "They won't stop me, either. They don't give a damn about me. They'd much rather have you be the The Heir," Sirius noted with both sarcasm and a level of disgust. He pushed his hair back in a nervous gesture, trying to relax and think rationally. Not easy when you're pissed off, upset and damned determined to say goodbye to this part of you. "I'm not going to let them control me and one day, when you're old enough, you'll probably feel the same. You just don't understand because you're just a child. You can't understand until you're older." "I'm not a child," Regulus objected, another chink in the armor as he furrowed his eyebrows -- less petulantly than usual, but no less vehemently. "She is not a 'lunatic,' and you will not be a 'lunatic,' and you need to just calm yourself because are you being an idiot." As much as he wished to deny to Sirius that his parents wouldn't prefer Sirius to just leave, he could not force the words to come. Frankly, it would not entirely surprise him if it was true, seeing as he himself knew how to behave, but did that mean he had to leave? He didn't have to be like Andromeda -- she had abandoned him years before, and he could not allow his brother to be so stupid as well. Life was not so bad. "You will be disowned, Sirius, and you cannot leave. Just try, for once." He resented the pleading tones that had seeped into his words, the tightness in his sleeve-grip, that feeling of imminent loss; but Sirius was his brother, ought to be in his house, staying away from the filth that was luring him to the other side -- the filth that was teaching him more and more how to turn his back on his family and his responsibilities without a care for the consequences. They were -- they were just so selfish. "What do you think I've been DOING?!" Sirius stopped and lowered his voice purposely, though it kept every bit of anger about the circumstances. "Do you think I like these sycophantic parties?" He seethed, "Do you think I enjoy negotiating a marriage? Do you think I hadn't better things to do than worse my backside off for exams, all for what? So they can tell me what's wrong with me? So they can tell me what I'm going to do with my life because they say so?" He rolled his eyes and resumed packing things. He couldn't leave anything he cared about because no doubt he would never be able to come into this room again. "If they care, cared, whatever passes for it the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, they'd want me to be happy." He shot a confident smile, hopefully looking a lot more convinced than he felt, at him. "As you so wittily put earlier, baby brother, I'm not happy. I hate this place and I hate them and if you weren't so busy chapping your lips on our mother's arse, you'd understand why I'm going." He forcibly softened when he realised he was using the same nervous habit with him that he did with their parents and took a deep breath. "If having control over my own life means being disowned, so be it. Now I know why Andie needed to get the fuck out." An earnestness melded with the swirl of emotions piling in Regulus's expression and voice -- a rare display for the so carefully self-monitored -- and his fingers twisted so firmly into the sleeve-ends that one might fear for the sleeves resulting condition. He did not like at all the direction the conversation seemed to be going, and there were so many bit Regulus knew he could argue with -- such as the fact that his lips were doing no such thing, or that despite an lack of 'excitement,' the parties were perfectly fine, or that obviously Sirius could not be trusted to pick a suitable marriage for himself; but despite these objections, he managed only managed a quiet, uncomfortably vulnerable plea. "Don't leave." There was something distinctly unnerving of the lack of what you might call 'proper' objections and their replacement with something that sounded, unless his ears were betraying him, like something emotional. He was more than used to his brother being an adult like child and Sirius did have to stop and take stock for a moment. He was clearly upset; maybe so much so that it would have been noticeable even if he didn't know him well enough to look for the signs. "Why do you care?" He shrugged, preferring to put him on the defensive than risk this turning into something it wasn't. "If I go, you have what you've always wanted, they get what hey always wanted - the perfect heir and..." He scrambled to think of something that would be comforting, if indeed he needed it which was bizarre in itself, but nothing was particularly right in this situation. "Congratulations." He could hear the bitterness in his tone but it was easier to try and get his feathers ruffled than to watch him get...well, un-Regulus-like. Uncontrolled. He could have said nothing would change. He could have tried to convince him to be happy about it. He could have told him to pack a bag himself but he was still too young to understand that it was only a matter of time. Why do you care? Perfect heir. Congratulations. With every word Sirius spoke, the strands of security in Regulus's life seemed to be unraveling, the solidarity of his family suffering another staggering blow – it wasn't going to change. Sirius wasn't going to stay. But how to take this? He wasn't nine years old anymore…this wasn't a cousin leaving for a Mudblood. This was his brother choosing blood traitors over him…leaving him now. For sixteen years Sirius had been his brother, and how was he supposed to stop that? How could it possibly be the same? How could he not…it wasn't… A stoniness swept over Regulus's features as the thoughts jammed in his mind. He couldn't lose himself over this. He was a Black. He was controlled, chilly, unwavering. Hurt and fear numbed, leaving a cold, determinedly resigned emotion in its wake – a visible transformation once again masking the chink in his defenses. Inevitable. Unstoppable. Inconvincible. Resolute in the decision to leave. The sick feeling felt less sick when he closed it off, less painful when laced with an icier brand of anger. Betrayal. Abandonment. Filthying with the undesirables. They were better off. They were better off. They were better off. He had trusted Sirius to care, but Sirius didn't care. Like a kicked animal lowering his gaze to the floor, detachment surfaced in his previously open face. He stood quite nearly unresponsive, a statue frozen in the door way as he permitted only two further words: "I don't." "Liar." Sirius told him evenly, because he just had to be difficult about this. He liked knowing he could challenge his brother's belief system and somehow knowing that said belief system was going to help his cause didn't factor in. He didn't want to help something that was going to mess him up for his adult life. He could see the cogs inside trying to process it and if it what was what got him to stop acting like such a girl, he supposed it wasn't all bad but he couldn't come off as condoning it. "You know where I'll be anyway, if they ask, which they won't." He was sure of it, picking the bag up and standing up a little straighter. He was not going to listen to insecure little voices that were saying showing up one night at James' wasn't going to be alright and that he could be fucking up his entire life, because just watching Regulus turn into what could be described as a little copy of their father was terrifying and this house was starting to make him feel claustrophobic. "Move." He said, bluntly. There was no point in sugar coating it. A fresh wave of coldness struck Regulus -- because indeed, he knew exactly where Sirius would be, and the jarring acknowledgment of it was enough to ice down even the remotest traces of warmth and timidity. Thinking about Potter, especially in the context of actually succeeding in his brother-thieving wiped away the feelings that he wanted Sirius there at all. Sirius didn't want to stick around for him...why should he care, then? Why should Regulus deign to care when he cared so little that he would run off? "No, I'm not a liar. After all, you're right, Sirius -- what would I care," he said with a quiet flatness, "Good riddance, then." As he stepped back from the door, he could not think about the fact that he was playing into what Sirius had said; he could not think of anything but that moment -- or perhaps he could just avoid thinking about anything at all. When he reached his door (rather swiftly, as his pace left little room for interference), Regulus stepped inside, locking it behind himself and leaning back against the wood, ears tuned into every little sound, everything that was so horrifically out of place. "Fuck you," Sirius said under his breath, watching as his brother practically took off out of the door. He hated not having the last word on things and it was a little disturbing when he wasn't allowed to from his little brother. He'll cool down, Sirius decided, taking a deep breath and heading down the stairs. He really didn't expect any resistance but it was still a little upsetting that there was no reaction at all. Forget them, he told himself mentally (several times to see if he could get it through his thick head) as he reached the bottom floor. He took a single gulp as he looked back at the house, pushed his shoulders back and headed out the door. If he was lucky, he'd make it Godrics Hollow by eleven and he'd feel a lot better then. Of course, slamming the door as hard as he could on his way out helped a lot too. The subtle vibration of the floor, the muffled slamming of doors was a telling sign of Sirius's successful departure. When silence blanketed the house once again, Regulus was left simmering in anger, more alone than he had been just moments before and all the more insistent on retreating into the safety of his solitude. The more he thought about Sirius and Potter and blood traitors Gryffindors and Muggles and leaving, the more bitterness he felt. And it was more comfortable to simmer, to feel angry at Sirius for abandoning their family, at Potter for being the catalyst that destroyed his family, at Muggles for being abhorrent and causing that controversy that made blood traitors exist at all. If there were no Muggles, there would be no blood traitors and no squibs – the Muggleborns wouldn't be able to steal any more magic from those who are magical, and their company would not degrade society any further because they would not exist. The door was uncomfortable against his back as he slid to the floor, but as he gaze locked blankly ahead, he settled back into the numbness. Once again he allowed the fire to cool, the thoughts to subside – he felt like his emotions were constantly spiking, constantly flat-lining, back and forth in rather switch-flip manner. Whether or not Sirius would come back, and whether or not he cared was not to be pondered. Tucking the thoughts safely into his mind and getting a grip on himself (he had control), Regulus stood and returned to his bed to where his book still sat discarded. Flipping to the page he had previously engaged himself in, Regulus curled up and stared distantly at the page. Things would never be the same. |