sirius. (ex_dog471) wrote in triumphic, @ 2014-05-12 01:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | !scene, 1991 : 05, black regulus, black sirius |
who: THE BROTHERS BLACK
what: Regulus has his cave moment
where: Grimmauld Place
when: Now
notes: PG13 for language & themes
For all the acute interest ‘I’m going to be away’ could cause in his brother (moments distinct in the mutable time which was life within the walls of Grimmauld Place), Regulus had left in the early hours of Saturday morning to silence, stillness. Kreacher had been instructed to leave well enough alone unless intervention was utterly unavoidable, meals were left charmed cool in multiple rooms, and upon what had once been the cook’s table in the kitchen; beyond that, he could do little else, and so he slipped out into shadow just lit by the possibility of dawn and soon disappeared entirely.
What passed in between was too heightened an experience to be real, too real an experience to be imagined. The journey to the coast by Muggle means (the better to slip past the watchful eyes of regulators, vigilantes and old friends all); pulling across the vast expanse of lake, the glint of torchlight upon vague shapes within the water noted but set aside as he steered the small rowing boat closer to its second harbour, the sweat-sheen upon his skin half fear half physical exertion; the pain, complete and total, the thirst.
Three attempts to apparate, each less successful than the last. A scream from lips normally sealed tight (even his admissions had been weighed, quantified: payments and not confessions) at the grip of fingers with inhuman strength upon his ankle, his calf, his elbow, and always the pain. One last push, all effort concentrated upon the sloping roof and well-worn floorboards of the attic rooms he made his study for this, upon the need to live and not the desire; a nudge, at the small of his back, a spark with just enough force -- and then the slump of his body, wracked upon those floorboards, locket still held in the vice-like grip of his left hand.
Help.
Life -- that silly, stubborn bitch that had him well encased within her claws -- carried on beyond the walls of Azkaban for all of Sirius’ attempts to lapse back into the enforced apathy that marked the interminable days after the Dementors had had their way with you. It wasn’t so much that he took interest, but that things were happening within the tight circles which had been forced upon him -- things which demanded his attention, willingly or otherwise. There was James (James, always James) and all of the consequences of his reappearance; Remus and his anger (eternal) and his unceasing questions; this damn, fucking house with its monstrous little house elf and all the screaming, wailing family portraits that he, in a fit of rage not two months ago, had flipped to face the walls.
So despite his best intentions -- despite his equally wild fits of lying around in a stupor -- Sirius was well attuned to what happened within his father’s walls. He knew very well how many plates of food were left out in strategic locations, and how such a set up meant that Regulus, despite Sirius’ great protestations, had taken his leave of the place for the day. When this happened, Sirius would pace and pace and wait and pace, then slink back into a room or a corridor as soon as he felt the wards bow away in order to admit his brother on his return (always a neat affair, a quiet apparition and the restrengthening of wards).
It felt different today. Felt like someone had crash-landed in a house that was only too willing to shudder; this was not how Regulus did things.
Despite everything, Sirius’ way was still to barrel his way through, which was exactly how he entered the attic after a snarling curse was directed at the complex little network of charms Regulus had presumably put in place to protect his privacy. His knee hit the floor with a solid thunk of sound as he fell beside his brother’s prone body -- “Regulus! You little shit, what’ve you done?”
Easy to think of reaching out his right hand to grip his brother’s arm, far harder to do; there was pain, consuming, and then the leaden weight of his limbs (the inevitability of that). But he could laugh at Sirius’ words, one bark which turned swiftly into a gasp before his jaw clenched tight upon the sound again, brought body under some slight measure of control.
I don’t know. But that would be a lie, and not the kind of falsehood which was appropriate for a deathbed, not between them. “Water.”
Sirius had already cast the lightning-quick once over to assure himself that, had this been an apparition, a splinch hadn’t stolen a limb or series of limbs from Regulus’ body, that his entrails weren’t hanging out, sandwiched between gaping skin and floor as Regulus bled out. Because there was none of that, his mind jumped to the next conclusion: poison.
“What did you take? What did you take?” was swift and sharp under his breath as he fumbled in his search for his brother’s wand. There was a locket in his hand -- the clammy fingers were pried open and the metal cast away as he continued, shoving his hand into a coat pocket, and then the next until he found what he was looking for. The wood was unfamiliar, the grip wrong, but for Sirius, there was little to summoning a pitcher of water -- and a damn bezoar from somewhere within their mother’s endless jars, now collecting dust down in the deepest recesses of the house.
“ -- don’t know, see things, can’t do --”
A heaving breath and Regulus began again, slowly, with forced clarity to each word: “ -- hurts, nerves, no water, need water. Head, vision poor, lies, vision lies -- don’t know poison, clever. Very clever…”
Again his hand tried to reach, this time for the water as it appeared, so easily summoned; again it lacked the power, still bent as though his prize had not been flung from his grip across the room (don’t do that was not worth saying; what harm could a knock do such a thing as the locket was?). “Would be, course. Clever man, clever thing, clever was --”
“What’re you on about?” There was little grace in the way Sirius maneuvered Regulus’ body, adjusting him roughly so that his brother’s neck was propped up by his leg, his head further tilted by a hand fisted into the dark hair as he grabbed the pitcher and levied a stream of water into his mouth. “The fuck have you gone and done, Regulus? I swear to Godric, if you die after everything -- no, just bloody drink!”
Any response Regulus might have made, sharp-edged or otherwise, was lost in the relief that the water brought from the most immediate urges upon his body -- cool, clear, blessedly actual, in his mouth, his throat, splashed against his so-hot cheek and neck. More deliverance than his transportation had been, and bringing with it the ability to use his brain for more than a constant litany of pain-brother-water-locket-Him.
Reasoned thought brought with it one first, bright, moment of understanding. “... Kreacher.”
The sound of the unpleasant creature’s name was met with a strangled sort of silence, Sirius biting back the rest of his furious litany in hope that the begged-for water would bring forth the answers he demanded. But -- Kreacher. The first clear word out of Regulus’ mouth.
“Kreacher.” A beat before the pitcher was flung away, much like the locket had been. “Cunting Kreacher. -- are you alive, Regulus?” His hand delivered a firm smack against a pale cheek. “Yes.”
If the pain which still held him in tight grip was any indication -- and Regulus was quite sure that it was -- he was most certainly alive; and if Sirius’ blow contributed to the work the water had done in allowing him space to think he did not thank him for it, instead making the slow and deliberate effort to unclench his hand one finger at a time and reach up to catch his brother’s sleeve. “Yes. Not from my magic though.” Smaller, lesser, different, what had nudged him and pulled him inelegantly from that cave to familiar space. Older. “Elf. Must know.”
“What?” If Sirius was stilled by that faint pressure on his arm, then it was for a moment only. He pulled his arm away, the grip on Regulus’ hair lessening so that he could drag his hand across his face, as if to mop up the moisture (and assure himself that there was warmth beneath the drawn features). “Stop talking. More water? Bezoar? Tell me what to do.”
The contradiction of the order and the questions brought a grimace which was meant to be a smile, just for a moment, across Regulus’ face. “Water, yes, more. With salt, too, after. Bezoar won’t work, not that kind of poison. Dehydrates, plays with synapses, mind; water and time will do.” Water and time would have to do, for there was no one but Sirius who would be permitted to see him like this. A minute passed.
“Thank you.”
Salt. Something -- amusement, perhaps -- twitched across Sirius’ expression as Regulus made words which seemed to follow each other with a logical sort of consistency. “Salt water. Right.” The wand, perfectly serviceable for all that it didn’t fit just right, was given another nudge, and as one of the priceless crystal salt shakers that Kreacher seemed to like to polish daily toppled onto the floor, he steadied his hand against the hard ridge of Regulus’ shoulder.
“Who was it? Were you attacked?”
“Just a pinch,” was a huff both imperious and self-aware (of course it sounded ridiculous but he was, in this, quite correct). “Wasn’t an attack. I had to beat the old man, didn’t have the time to wait, work it all out; should have remembered the Apparition dampers, guessed about inferi. Stupid.”
His brother’s leg was a solid weight beneath him -- reassuring, as Sirius had not often been reassuring in the past twenty years. “Oh well. Beat him, still alive. Good day.”
“-- wait, what? What inferi?” Suspicion about his brother was now a reflexive thing, difficult to kill; his hand upon Regulus’ shoulder tensed as it scraped down to tighten around his forearm, where that terrible mark would forever remain etched into the skin. “Sod the salt -- why are you playing with inferi?”
It wasn’t Sirius’ suspicion which caused terror to rise high in Regulus, which saw him wrench away from his brother with as much strength as he was able (pitifully little, but if ever last reserved were for anything they were for this) -- sprawling, still held by his brother’s hand, cheek pressed to the floor. It was the thought of the man-monster who walked the halls of Regulus’ dreams and would never leave him just as His brand would never leave him.
Regulus’ voice was harsh and quick when it came, the panic clear: “Do you want him to know? Stop it, Sirius, for the love of -- don’t touch it.”
This was a mistake; Regulus should have known that Sirius would do the precise opposite of what was instructed, even if said instruction was delivered with such a degree of dread. “Why?” he hissed, his lean forward on both his knees naturally levelling his weight down to bear upon Regulus through the twinned pressure of his hands, one unmoving on his arm, the other heavy around his nape. “Why can’t I touch it? Why would he know? WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH INFERI? Are you playing the Death Eater again?”
“Being fucking drowned by them -- and he’ll know, Sirius, he’ll know because he’ll feel you because he knows our blood and he knows our touch and he’s there, he’s waiting, and he suspects me and I just stole his fucking horcrux so please, please --”
Breaths shuddered through him, the only movement he could make under such grip given his weakened condition, his eyes closed tight. “Please don’t touch it.”
A moment passed -- then a full minute. Whether the silence that followed Regulus’ words was more deafening than the pound of his pulse in his own head, Sirius didn’t know; knew only that he could only mean one thing, and that such a realisation filled him with a chill that twisted, slick, around the base of his spine.
The hands which pinned Regulus down went slack, then were withdrawn as he stood up and retrieved the salt shaker and the pitcher.
“-- just a pinch?”
All Regulus’ effort, for a long time, was focused on returning his breathing to something close to baseline; allowing limbs to lay still; grounding himself. Inhale and exhale, his own heartbeat a drum to be slowed, quietened, controlled.
After some time -- five minutes, half an hour -- his voice came low, steady enough to pass as calm. “A pinch.”
The quantity was measured out with a corresponding twitch of his fingers, his feet quiet against the floorboards as he returned to Regulus’ side, pitcher in hand. He didn’t move -- yet -- to offer it to his brother.
“Is that what that thing is?” he asked, a flick of his gaze towards the discarded locket before it returned to Regulus.
His eyes remained closed; better not to see, and better to just focus, for the moment, on the small details from which greater control could be won. “One of them, yes.”
Shortly (Merlin’s cock, his head was spinning with the implications of this; everything about it was wrong, people -- Lily and Harry and everyone -- had died for no reason, no reason at all, because if he was still alive, it meant the war hadn’t been won in the imperfect way they thought it had, but that it’d never ended at all) -- “Right.”
Flat, even: “Now you know.” He could sleep here: the position was becoming familiar, the varnished wood against his cheekbone and fingertips comforting. Real; the pain would wait until he woke, water doubtless would too. “Just -- leave it where it is, for now. You can leave me too.”
“Right,” Sirius repeated, a degree more wooden this time as he glanced down at the pitcher, then back at Regulus.
“I’ll fetch Kreacher.”
“Don’t.” Everything but the most basic of responses was too exhausting to drag from his head, his chest to form into coherent words and speak . “Just -- don’t.”
“You --” need someone who can look after you. The words were kept clamped behind his teeth, and with a single nod instead, he placed the pitcher back on the floor, just an arm’s length away from Regulus.
After a further moment of taut silence: “James wants to see you.”
Sirius’ voice came from further away, or so it seemed, but despite the words he spoke and the (once much-hated) name that he mentioned, it wasn’t without a certain comfort. “Joy. Don’t let him in until I have the energy to leave any room I wish, please.”
“I’m not bringing him here,” Sirius replied. James Potter, back from the dead, stepping foot in Grimmauld Place would be akin to rubbing salt into a gaping wound. “We’ll go to him.”
The pitcher was nudged forward with his foot before he stepped away, making for the door and hesitating for a further second before, with a final lingering look at the locket (so gaudy, so ordinary in this household of heirlooms and forgotten treasures), he left, letting the door slam behind him.
Regulus’ need for rest overrode the thirst which remained: the water would still be there when he woke, as would the locket -- and, presumably, Sirius (gone as ordered, but not as wished; still, his brother had always chosen which commands to obey and which to trample over subject to his own whim and no one else’s). The world grew further away as sleep enveloped him. “Can’t fucking wait.”