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fruitcoops · 6 months

Note

So I just reread the fic about Jules birthday, and I’ve always liked the part where Remus tells Jules that he’ll always be more important than hockey. Could you write a fic about that if you haven’t already? Like Remus leaving in the middle of practice or something like that? Idk it’s up to u:)

Fic O'Ween Day 3: Midnight! Read more amazing works from these prompts at @noots-fic-fests and of course, character credit goes to @lumosinlove <3

TW illness (coughing, mentioned vomiting, fatigue)

Remus leaned against the countertop for support and stared at the floor. “But he’s okay, right?”

“He’s okay,” his mother answered. She sounded beyond exhausted.

Remus nodded and rubbed his fingers under his eye. The night suddenly seemed so much darker. “How’re you and dad? Taking time off?”

“We’re alright.” He knew that low edge to her voice—it was the same one his own took on when he was trying to hide his hurt. Silence fell over the line.

“Mom.”

“Your dad can’t get PTO this week and neither can I.”

She cleared her throat; he closed his eyes. “Can Leanne keep an eye on him?”

“Visiting her daughter in Florida.”

No parents, no neighbors, no way they’re getting a babysitter for a sick kid… “I’ll be on the next flight.”

“Remus, no.”

“There’s nobody else—”

“Honey.” He could see the way her eyebrows drew together in his mind. “Honey, you’re on the road this week.”

“I know.”

“In Montreal.”

“They can handle a couple games without me.”

“You’re practically a rookie, Remus,” his mother insisted. After a pause, she lowered her voice. “You’re not going to damage your career when we can get a babysitter, or—or I can find a couple days off. Hell, your dad’s got a pullout at the office he can rest on.”

“I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon, okay?”

“Remus John, you have a responsibility to your team.”

“Jules comes first.” If there was one thing Remus would stand by no matter the circumstances, it was his family. The Lions would survive a roadie without him. Jules would never be alone and sick on his watch.

His mother was silent for a long time.

Remus picked at a chip in the granite. “There’s no babysitter that will watch him, is there?”

A sigh traveled down the line. “I guess we’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too, baby. Give Sirius my best. Sleep well.”

“I will,” he lied. The call went dead and he turned, bracing both hands against cool stone. Sirius’ footsteps were soft, his hand gentle. Remus sniffled. His chest was a vise. “Mom says hi.”

Slow circles pressed between his shoulder blades. “What happened?”

“Jules got the flu, and they can’t get time off work to stay home with him.” Fucking assholes in fucking corporate. Remus swallowed around the clog in his throat. “Sounds like he’s pretty sick.”

“Does he need to go to the hospital?”

Remus shook his head. The hand on his back slid down and wrapped around his side, guiding him to lean on Sirius’ chest. “Do you want me to book your flight while you call Coach?”

“Yeah.” His voice was rough. He didn’t let go. “God, I hate being so far away.”

Sirius’ other arm came around him and held him tight.

Remus and his father talked the whole ride home from the airport, and said nothing at all.

The house was just as he left it at Christmas. No snow remained, and little frost—crocuses peeked out of the lawn where the squirrels had snatched and buried them.

Apologies for the late notice, but due to a family emergency, I will be in Wisconsin until the 22nd. Thank you for your understanding.

Rapid responses. Cranky responses. Remus had tried to keep a level head, even through the tremor of his hands on the computer keyboard. The organization wasn’t happy with him, but when were they ever?

It didn’t matter either way. Fine or not, suspension or not, they weren’t going to stop him from making chicken soup and raspberry Emergen-C for his sick little brother. He was damn lucky to have Arthur on his side, easing the retribution from men in offices who had hardly bothered to meet him at the start of the season.

“Your mother’s worried.”

Remus glanced up from his hands. His father was facing forward, brow pinched while he pulled into the driveway. “Yeah.”

The engine turned off with a sputter. “Be gentle, okay?”

“It’s not your fault they wouldn’t give you time—”

“Be gentle.”

Remus bit the inside of his lip and nodded. A goldfish cracker peered out at him from the crevice by the door. This passenger seat always made him feel so small. He slung his backpack out of the seat well and stepped out, letting the crisp air nip his face and bring him back. He needed to come back more. The heartache had lessened, and distance was simply exhausting now. Running fast and far to Gryffindor had seemed so smart before.

The front door still squeaked when he turned the doorknob. Remus was glad for that, at least.

His mother smiled when she saw him. “Hi, baby, how was your flight?”

“Hey, mom.” It was good, he started to say, only to have the words fall from his mind the moment she stepped around the kitchen table and wrapped him in her arms. It’s been a lot I love you I missed you how are you where’s Jules—“Uneventful, thankfully.”

“Good, that’s just the way you want it.” She gave a little sway, one hand cradling the back of his neck. He felt a light pulse of pressure. Her back, ever tense, relaxed slightly. “It’s so good to have you home.”

Remus breathed deep. Lemon-scented cleaning spray and drugstore shampoo, laundry detergent and just-sharpened pencils. He pressed his nose tighter to her shoulder and felt her squeeze him, just a little. “Missed you.”

“Oh, Re,” she sighed. A hand rubbed along his spine for a few hard, grounding, wonderful seconds. Warmth seeped in around his edges. The floor was solid beneath him, the walls sturdy. A kiss found his temple. “Baby, we missed you, too.”

A rattling cough made him wince. “Jeez.”

“I know.” Her face crinkled into a grimace when they separated and she looked back down the hall. “That started up two days ago. Poor thing. Keeps him up at night.”

“Aw.” The cough was followed by a rough throat-clear that made Remus frown. “Fever and everything?”

“102, as of this morning.” Hope ran a palm over his shoulder, the way she tended to right after he came home. Remus tried not to think about that too hard, or else he made himself sad. “You’re sure about this? You could get sick. It’s the middle of the season.”

Remus tried for an encouraging smile. “My immune system’s great, mom. I’m in good shape, I take my multivitamins. Eat my Wheaties, and all that.”

“Hmm.” She scrutinized him for a beat. “You better be.”

“I’m basically indestructible.”

Her laugh bounced off the corners of the house like it always had. “Let’s not get hasty, hon.”

“Mom?”

Remus’ heart sank.

“Dad?” Jules croaked, a little louder. “Did the neighbors come over?”

“Hey, J,” Remus called. The floorboards gave a light groan when he set his bag down at the end of the hall. “It’s me, bud.”

Silence followed. The bathroom nightlight was on, casting the hall in gentle blue. His hand drifted toward the first door on reflex (cool metal knob, lock on the inside, jimmy it three times in the winter when the frame sticks), but he managed to step past it and knock lightly below the ‘J LUPIN. DO NOT ENTER.’ sign scotch-taped to the old wood.

“Jules? I’m opening the door.”

The first thing that hit him was the smell. Stale, sweaty, feverish—Remus did a double-take without meaning to.

“Jesus Christ, dude.”

“Oh, you weren’t kidding,” Jules rasped from somewhere to his right. “Hey. Hi, why are you here?”

“You slept too long. It’s June. I’m here for the summer.”

“Hey.”

“You’re sick, dummy.” Remus tried to be subtle about propping the door open wider with a loose hockey glove. “I’m taking care of you.”

With the new, faint light from the hallway, he could see just how terrible Julian looked. His unconvinced squint didn’t help the sallowness of his skin or the heavy bags carved under his eyes. “Nuh-uh.”

“Yuh-huh.”

“Nuh-uh, you have a roadie in—” Another hacking cough interrupted him. It shook his tiny frame hard enough to make his knees bend under the covers. Remus’ heart gave an acid lurch.

Agitated heat radiated off him to the point that Remus could feel it when he perched on the edge of the bed. The sheets were a tangled mess; one blanket half-tucked, the other mostly on the floor. “Deep breaths,” he soothed when the coughing turned to a few aggressive sniffles. “Take it easy.”

“Montreal,” Jules finished in a mutter. He wiped his nose on the edge of his baggy t-shirt (almost certainly their father’s, with the way it dwarfed him) and laid back with a long huff. “You got a roadie in Montreal. Dad ‘n me are gonna watch the game.”

“Dad and I.”

“Shhh.”

He smiled to himself and tugged the top blanket down to shimmy the next one into position. “Well, you and I can watch it. How’s that sound?”

“No, you need to play,” Jules groaned, but even that was weak. He curled onto his side and peeked out of his huddle, dull-eyed and flushed. “How come you’re here anyway?”

“Told you. I’m taking care of you.”

“But hockey.”

“But you.”

“But…hockey.”

“But you.” His stomach gave a little pull. “You’re more important than a couple games, bud.”

Jules didn’t look like he believed him. “…okay.”

“I’m serious.”

“No, you’re R—”

“Don’t you—” Remus bit back his words (and his grin) and whacked lightly at the outline of Jules’ legs under the blankets, coaxing a crunchy sort of laugh from him. “Watch it. I’m in charge of feeding you for the next few days.”

Jules’ giggling trickled out with a last sniff. “Mom and Dad gotta go to work, huh?”

“Yeah.” The wrinkle of his nose was almost certainly reflected on Remus’ face. “But hey, we’ll have fun.”

“Mmm.”

The air shifted, along with his gut. Jules’ breaths were heavier. His eyes, lidded. His forehead was far too hot against the back of Remus’ hand when he checked it. “Tired?”

“Mhmm.”

Wrapping him in a dozen blankets and cuddling him as tight as possible wouldn’t help. Logically, Remus knew that. The temptation was still there. “Too hot?”

“Warm.”

“Want me to take a blanket?”

Jules shook his head. His eyes were closed fully now. “Weight’s nice.”

Every inhale hitched when Remus rested a hand between his shoulder blades, feeling for his pulse. That, at least, was calm. Jules had sweated through the old grey fabric there. He combed a few strands of hair off his burning brow and swallowed around his dry throat. “Want me to leave you alone for a bit?”

“Gonna nap.” Jules’ twitched, as if he was trying to readjust but lacked the energy. “Here when I wake up?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be here.”

The evening passed without issue. Night rolled in with a gust of wind that hissed across the windowpanes while Remus dried the last of the dishes. Jules had managed to get up and come to the table for dinner, but he had looked even worse in the brighter light and barely ate half a bowl of soup. He could see their mother struggling not to fuss over him, not that Jules had any oomph to give real protest.

What kind of family emergency is this, Lupin?

A family emergency. I can come back the 22nd.

You’re missing two games. Do you understand that? Weasley won’t play you for the third, either.

I understand.

Is this a funeral?

No.

A wedding?

No.

It’s a request for nonvital time off, then. This could very well result in a fine.

I’m aware of that. Time off for a family emergency is covered in my contract. I’m permitted to miss four games.

Are you really going to put in a request for this? For a nonvital midweek trip instead of two NHL games?

That’s precisely what I’m requesting, yes. This is an emergency and therefore it is vital.

Remus had not missed the bureaucracy of the NHL during his time on the ice. There was still administrative irritation, of course, but it had not been nearly long enough since he played email tag with someone determined to make his life harder. ‘Nonvital emergency’. It made him want to laugh and lose it at the same time. What a fucking joke.

A sudden rustle and thud—likely Jules’ elbow hitting the wall between their rooms, ouch—startled him from half-sleep. Clumsy footsteps pattered on the floor; a door creaked and closed, quickly followed by a dry heave. Remus winced in sympathy.

This bedroom felt too small. His feet touched the end of the bed if he stretched out. There were only a few inches’ allowance for his shoulders on either side before he hit a wall or the edge of the mattress. Even his stuff felt smaller, as if the books shrank in his hands and the trophies had been made for someone Jules’ size.

He supposed they had been. Juniors was a world away, these days. He had turned the idea of keeping a potential you-know-what ring here instead of in Gryffindor, but never really committed one way or another. That, too, felt far off. He was stuck in the middle of a spectrum, where nothing felt quite right.

The toilet flushed, but he didn’t hear Jules leave. The low timbre of their father’s voice buzzed in the hall for a second; he didn’t catch Jules’ response. Remus swung his legs over the side of the bed with a huff and stood despite the creaking protests of his knees.

The blue light looked eerie in the cover of real night. He propped Jules’ door open again as he passed. A little ventilation couldn’t hurt. He paused in the doorway of the bathroom and crouched down, lowering himself to the cool linoleum with a soft groan. “Sup?”

“M not gonna throw up again.”

“Okay.” Remus flexed his ankles against the cabinets and tilted his head back. The soft towels buffered him from the wallpaper. Next to him, Jules’ forehead was stubbornly pressed into the crease of his elbow where he rested it on the toilet seat. “Still sick?”

A wordless mumble answered him.

“I’m gonna make chicken and dumplings tomorrow.”

Jules weakly raised his head. “Really?”

“Yup. Protein, veggies, sodium, starch. All that good stuff.”

Quiet fell over them for a long moment. “What are you talking about?”

“What, you don’t want a science lesson?”

“Nerd—”

He knew it was going to happen before Jules’ first jerk forward and caught his side when he wobbled, giving gentle pressure until he was upright. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s okay, I got you.”

“Ugh.”

“I know. You’re doing great, J.” It was over as fast as it started. Jules trembled lightly under his touch, sweaty again, all too warm again. His knuckles stood out in harsh midnight shadows where he gripped the porcelain, thin arms shivering.

Jules sniffled. “I wanna go to bed.”

“I bet.”

“I’m tired.”

“Can you stand up?” It took Jules a moment to even start moving; when he did, it was sluggish and unsteady. Remus hovered his hands close and resisted the urge to scoop him right up. Jules wouldn’t like that. He hated being babied. It was still fucking hard to watch him pull himself to his feet.

A rinse-and-spit and a cool washcloth on the back of his neck made Jules sigh. He leaned right into Remus’ hip, head at the base of his ribs, and staggered along on foal legs while Remus guided him back to bed with a lump in the base of his throat. There was no fuss about being tucked in—he simply sighed again, so content it hurt. Remus smoothed out the hem of the comforter by his neck just one more time, once more, just so he could be sure.

Their parents were out by the time Remus woke. He distantly recalled the sound of them leaving, but the plane left him groggy enough not to notice or care. Jules was still snoring loud enough for him to hear it through their shared wall.

Breakfast, then. Something light. Oatmeal or eggs, if he could keep it down. Broth, if not. Remus would have to check the fridge for Gatorade and lemons.

It was strange to be functionally alone in the house. The carpet felt too soft, the curtains too still. A bright pink sticky note was stuck to the table with his name written in big letters at the top. He’d check it later.

Message To: SB <3

Morning :)

Fever’s still going, nasty cough, the works. I’ll keep an eye on him today.

Miss you

He clicked his phone off and set it aside—hopefully, Sirius wouldn’t be awake for some time yet. They didn’t have practice for two more hours in his time zone. He liked to sleep in on days like that. Remus, on the other hand, had work to do.

Quick eggs and bacon for himself took fifteen minutes. He parked himself at his usual seat without really thinking about it, pulling a dish towel and a fork from their drawers with an absent mind. He hadn’t dared to check his email yet and seriously contemplated leaving it alone until he was back in Gryffindor. Time off was time off. Professional hockey wasn’t big on ‘work from home’.

Jules shuffled in half past ten and made a beeline for the couch.

“Good morning.”

A grunt answered.

“Sleep well?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Want oatmeal?”

Jules’ mumble seemed vaguely affirmative. Remus set the kettle on and dug a pot out of the cupboard, then turned to rummage in the pantry. This was setting up to be a silent morning.

Measuring for a sick preteen was almost as strange as picturing his childhood bedroom as a normal size. Remus had only cooked for himself for years, then himself and Sirius, with the occasional potluck dish for a team dinner or holiday party. A single cup of anything was a novelty. “Want sugar?” he checked once the oats and milk were simmering. Jules snuffled in response, dragging one of the knit blankets further over his head. “Lemme check your temperature and then you can tell me, yeah?”

“Mmkay.”

A quick search of the medicine cabinet revealed no thermometer, and the same went for the hall closet. Remus spent a good five minutes riffling through the bathroom drawers and Jules’ desk before he found it propped against the base of his dolphin lamp. It had been left uncapped; gross. He made sure to give it a thorough wash before moving back into the living room.

“Blanket down.”

“No.”

“I can’t see your mouth. C’mon, just for a second.”

“Cold. Bright.”

“Twenty seconds, J. I promise. You can count.”

The blanket lump shifted. “Twenty?”

“Fifteen. Then I’ll bring your oatmeal over and leave you alone.”

A handful of shallow breaths filled the silence before Jules’ forehead poked out, then his glazed eyes, and finally the lower half of his face. Remus grimaced. His nose was red and chapped from tissues, and a faint crack split the side of his lower lip. “Have you been drinking your water?”

“Fifteen seconds,” Jules slurred.

Remus knew he wasn’t getting a better number than yesterday. Not with this vague lucidity, and not when Jules was hardly able to hold a fragment of a conversation. All the same, it made his gut sink when the thermometer beeped.

“Whuzzat?”

“102.5.”

“ ‘S worse?”

“Yep.”

A resigned nod told him Jules expected as much. The blanket swallowed him up again. Remus pulled it down over his feet before heading back to the kitchen.

Three hours passed with all the rush of a snail on codeine. Jules rallied to choke down his oatmeal before going down for a noon nap, let Remus rouse him to gulp down about a gallon of water, and overall remained sedentary while Remus channel-surfed for anything even slightly interesting on daytime TV. They settled on NCIS from one to 2:30, NCIS: Miami from 2:30 to four (with a brief break for sandwiches, or toast, in Jules’ case), and rounded it out with NCIS: LA while Remus tossed some rotisserie chicken and chopped vegetables in a simmering pot of broth.

“Re?”

“Yeah, bud?” Bisquick puffed over the side of the mixing bowl in a soft cloud.

“My stomach hurts.” Jules’ voice wavered. “And my mouth feels weird.”

Fuck. “Bathroom, hustle.”

The glimpse he caught of Jules before he vanished down the hall confirmed it: pallid skin, dilated pupils, sweat gleaming on the back of his neck. Remus rinsed his hands in the sink and dug the box of Pepto Bismol tablets out of his bag, and sent a silent thanks to whatever small mercy it was that left him without a reactive gag reflex.

He spent twenty minutes sitting sideways with water seeping into his pants from the bathmat. “I’m gonna throw up until I die,” Jules whined, pressing his forehead to Remus’ palm.

“You’re not gonna die. Definitely not while I’m here.” He slid his hand around to press against the nape of Jules’ neck and gave a light squeeze. “You’re almost done. Work it out, buddy.”

“Gonna miss the game?”

Despite the sweat, despite the illness, despite it all—Remus smiled. Of course Jules would be thinking about that when he looked like death warmed over. He wouldn’t be a Lupin with anything else on his mind. “We’ve still got half an hour.”

Jules gave a faint push back into his hand. His lower lip wobbled. “I don’t want to miss it.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll make it.”

“I don’t—” His voice cracked, but it wasn’t even slightly funny. He took a shuddering inhale and sniffled again, harsher. “I don’t want to be sick anymore, I don’t, I’m so done, I don’t like it.”

“Jules…” The redness had flooded his cheeks and ears, inching down his neck with each horribly choked breath. Jules’ eyes were bright, but not like usual. He blinked and a drip tracked down his nose. His exhale wasn’t much of an exhale at all—it wracked him, made him sway. “Oh,” Remus murmured. “Oh, hey, c’mere.”

The edge of thirteen had left Jules gangly, all bones and joints. He still fit just right in the hollow of Remus’ chest and arms. A shivering, overheated mess, but a mess that fit all the same. Fuck it, Remus thought as he tightened his arms around Jules and let him fall apart in the safe dark. He didn’t care if he got sick. This was the most vital emergency he could possibly think of. If the administration had a problem with that, he’d happily turn his gear in before leaving Jules to burn through this alone.

“I’m tired,” Jules whispered through shuddering breaths. “My head hurts ‘n my stomach hurts ‘n everything else, too.”

“I know, bud, you’re being so brave.”

A damp, wounded noise made Remus wince.

“But hey, you haven’t thrown up in, like, five minutes.”

Jules felt around blindly for a tissue and blew his nose several times before answering. “I guess.”

“You ready to get up? Have some dinner and watch the game?”

“Dizzy.”

“Okay.” He pressed the wrinkles out of Jules’ shirt with his palm and felt him go limp. “I brought some super special secret hockey medicine, if that’ll help.”

“…is it Gatorade?”

“No, but we have that, too.” He rattled the box next to Jules’ ear. “Pepto Bismol. My secret weapon.”

“Nuh-uh. That’s the pink sh—stuff.”

“Nice save,” Remus said dryly. “This is the same. It’s easier to keep down, though. And it works faster.”

“Makes my stomach stop hurting?”

“It might help.”

He waited a beat, then two. A clammy palm extended from the tangle of limbs near his middle. He dropped two of the chalky tabs into it and loosened his hold by a degree, enough for Jules to pop them both in his mouth and frown immediately. “Yuck. It’s crunchy.”

“Keep chewing.”

“Why is it coming apart like that?”

“Keep chewing,” Remus repeated through a light laugh. “Doesn’t work if you talk the whole way through.”

Jules tucked his legs closer to himself, pushing him further into Remus’ lap. As horrible as the past twenty minutes had been, he seemed better for it. The fevered sheen to his face wasn’t quite as nuclear. His breathing sounded more even and controlled.

“You finished?”

“Mhmm.”

Jules might have looked better, but Remus didn’t have the energy to fight the coddling urge this time. He slid his free arm across the back of Jules’ knees and hefted him up like a cat gone boneless, and received no protest whatsoever. Instead, Jules curled into him with a long, relieved sigh. Remus’ heart may have shattered a little.

The pregame show was just wrapping up when he set Jules gingerly on the couch and pulled the blanket around him. Half of his waterbottle was gone in a few desperate swallows; Jules wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and all but collapsed onto the throw pillows, a heap of exhaustion. The belltower by the middle school tolled six. His sandy hair was damp at the root when Remus passed a hand through it. They’d fix that eventually. Fluids first (hockey first), then everything else.

New Message From: SB <3

Heading to the rink. Miss you love you : )

Remus smiled down at his phone as he set Jules’ bowl on the coffee table and folded himself into the armchair.

“Tell Sirius I say hi.”

“He’s literally right there,” Remus laughed, gesturing at the TV. “He’s not gonna see it for ages.”

“Still.” Jules poked around with his spoon for a few seconds before attempting a small sip of broth. An approving nod followed. “It’s good.”

“Glad it meets your standards. Eat. Protein, veggies, sodium, starch.”

Jules’ eye roll was weak, but very much present. “I know, I know.”

“You gotta know that stuff.”

“I’m not gonna be a doctor.”

“Yeah, but you’re still gonna be a person.” Remus cut a dumpling in half with the side of his spoon. “If you don’t know how to feed yourself by the time you move out, I’m totally making fun of you.”

“Whatever.”

They both booed when the Habs skated out, and cheered when the Lions appeared soon after. Jules couldn’t muster much more than a rough whisper, but the soup and a bottle of Gatorade seemed to help. Remus made him get up and stretch during the first period intermission (to immense complaints, but eventual acquiescence) before letting him rest while he washed up in the kitchen.

New Message From: SB <3

First period up.

How’s J?

New Message To: SB <3

Haha yeah we’re watching

Temp’s high, still pretty sick. Getting better tho

Made soup

The response was almost immediate. Remus’ heart skipped at the thought of Sirius glued to his phone even after a rough period, just to chat with him.

New Message From: SB <3

Oooo jealous

New Message To: SB <3

Yeah you should be

It’s a real rager up here

Miss you. Go get ‘em.

A simple heart and hockey stick emoji followed. The grey bubble cycled for a moment before disappearing. That would be the midgame meeting. Remus was glad to be home—wouldn’t trade this—but he had to admit the hockey ache was still there. Even easy choices had consequences.

By the time he looked back, Jules was asleep. Remus checked his forehead as delicately as he could and was pleased to find it slightly cooler than that morning, if altogether too warm. The pattern of creaky floorboards laid a map in his bones as he moved through the house: first to open Jules’ window, then to let his blankets air out, and while he was at it, he may as well wash the sheets. The nightstand and bookshelf needed to be wiped down. It wasn’t hard to get that done while the washer rumbled on the other side of the hall. In the meantime, the soup had cooled enough to pack up in Tupperware to stack in the fridge for later. Who knew if Jules would suddenly get his appetite back? The kid was a bear when he was hungry.

He lingered for the end of the second period and swapped the sheets into the dryer at the start of the third with a cookie and a cup of Emergen-C for himself. He damn well better not catch whatever germs Jules had percolated from the hellscape of middle school. Sirius had called him ‘stubbornly healthy’ on too many occasions for it to be disproven. Besides, the administration might actually fire him if he came back from an emergency and was immediately out for three more games.

“Re?”

The sound of a quiet voice took Remus’ off-guard in the last few minutes of the third period. “What’s up?”

Jules shifted around until he could prop his chin on the throw pillow and blink blearily at Remus. “Did we win?”

“Game’s still going. 4-3, Lions.”

“How much time?”

“Just under five.”

Jules attempted a whistle, though it came out as more of a shaky breath. “Almost there.”

“Dad texted. They’ll be home in a few, traffic was rough.”

“Oh, okay.” A small smile lit his face. He burrowed back under the blanket. “That’s good.”

“They’ve been asking about you all day.”

“Did’ja tell them I was fine?”

“Something like that.” Sort of. Maybe. He had been gentle about it, at least. Gory details would only make them panic.

He made sure to poke Jules awake for the last minute of the game before shepherding him down the hall to brush his teeth and shower. It was only 8:30, but Remus felt weary all the way to his core. He made Jules’ bed while the water ran and tried to tuck the sheets in along the wall a little deeper this time, just in case one tried to end up on the floor again. If he had the time, he may as well do it right, pinched fingers notwithstanding.

It was all worth it when Jules trudged back into his bedroom and threw himself into bed, only to gasp aloud. “Aw, man, this is great.”

“You’re welcome,” Remus laughed.

“Oh, wow.” The bumps of Jules’ feet kicked happily under layers of fabric and down. “It’s all warm, and cozy…”

“Get some sleep,” he reminded him, and turned out the big light. “If you need anything, I’m right next door.”

He made it halfway across Jules’ carpet.

“Wait!”

“What?”

“You—” The faint outline of Jules’ head was backlit by his lamp. Remus could see the shadows of his hands fidgeting with the top blanket. “Will you…can you tell me about the soup stuff? The proteins and all that.”

Remus hesitated. “For real?”

“Yeah,” Jules said with a surprisingly enthusiastic nod. “It sounds cool.”

“I mean—yeah, sure. Uh…” Jules’ desk chair looked wildly uncomfortable for this time of night, so edge of the bed it was, he supposed. The sheets provided a nice cushion when he sat. “Okay, have you ever heard of macromolecules?”

“That’s a made-up word.”

“It’s what you’re made up of, actually. How about DNA? You know that one?”

Lyall opened the front door with a muttered curse for the bitter wind and the worse traffic. It was brutally unfair that the one day he tried to come home early, everything went to hell and kept him an age and a half longer. What kind of karma came after a father trying to get home to his sick kid?

“It’s awfully quiet,” Hope remarked behind him. The door opened at last; warm air rushed over them. “Boys? Are you up?”

The NHL postgame show was playing at a low volume, next to a plate with crumbs on it and a mug so old the pattern had washed off it. One of Hope’s blankets from her knitting phase was haphazardly piled on the couch. The evidence of both of them there, present and accounted for and safe, plucked at his heartstrings. “Why do I feel like this is exactly where they sat for the entire day?”

She shook her head. “Good for them. I’m jealous. Remus? Julian? Are you home?”

Remus’ bedroom door was closed. The bathroom fan was still on, and steam clung to the corners of the mirror next to a still-damp towel. It couldn’t have been long since they went to bed, then. Lyall pushed Julian’s bedroom door open wider and covered his mouth with his palm.

They had nearly rendered each other invisible, save for Remus’ legs stretched over the side of the bed and Julian’s arm resting atop his pile of blankets. Julian’s congested snoring drowned out the heavy, even rhythm of Remus’ breathing. As far as he could tell, only one of them had actually been prepared for bed.

“Oh my goodness,” Hope whispered at his shoulder. Her grin was radiant, even half-covered by her palm. “I don’t want to move them.”

“Re’s going to wake up with one hell of a side cramp if we let him sleep like that.”

“You do it, then.”

“…no.”

Hope scoffed fondly and tossed her hands in the air, then kissed him on the jaw as she stepped deeper into the bedroom. The whole place felt lighter, Lyall noticed. Julian had been holed up in here for two days, refusing to come out for anything but necessities. Whatever Remus had done, it worked wonders.

“Remus,” Hope singsonged in her quietest voice. She shook his shoulder, soft enough that for a moment, Lyall forgot Remus wasn’t a toddler anymore. “Baby, you need to wake up. It’s bedtime.”

“ ‘M asleep,” Remus mumbled without opening his eyes. “In my bed.”

“This isn’t your bed, lovey,” she laughed. “Come on, up you go.”

“Goin’ to sleep, promise.” His eyelashes fluttered, nose crinkling. “Talking ‘bout—‘bout proteins. Jules wanted to know.”

At the head of the bed, Julian didn’t show so much as a hint of waking. Lyall stepped forward and braced his hands under Remus’ arms, then hoisted him into a sitting position as gently as he could manage with the unexpected weight of an athlete to counterbalance him.

Remus jolted, startling into consciousness. “Woah—”

“Shh, shh.” Lyall helped him stand on clumsy legs and guided him to the door with a last playful glance at Hope. “I’ve got you, buddy.”

“Fell asleep.” Remus blinked hard. “Jules’ bed. Wanted me to stay. Time is it?”

“Almost nine.”

“Oh, god, ‘s early.” A yawn overtook him, spilling more of his weight into Lyall. He didn’t seem to know where his own feet were, but he went easily into the room next door.

“Alright,” Lyall huffed as he helped Remus stumble toward the bed and splay over the mattress. That old thing was definitely too small for him these days. Funny, how times changed so rapidly. That same bed used to make Remus look like nothing more than a pile of sheets. “Brush your teeth?”

A drawn-out snore answered him.

Lyall smiled to himself in the darkness and ruffled the back of Remus’ hair. “Night, Re.”

A single socked foot twitched in response. That was good enough for him.

(Jules’ fever broke the next morning. By the end of the day, he was well enough to go with them to the airport and give Remus the fiercest goodbye hug either of them had experienced, with a pinky-promise that the Lions would win the next game he played.)

#remus lupin #julian lupin #sirius black #lyall lupin #hope lupin #sweater weather #vaincre #lumosinlove #my fic #fanfic #fic o’ween 2023 #illness #sickfic #lupin bros #hurt/ comfort

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fruitcoops · 1 year

Note

a prompt:

sirius and regulus argument. probably something which has been manifesting for a while, like it starts with short sly comments and then builds up to create tension within the family (cuz i consider them part of the dumais family) so dumo tries to comfort one or both of them in the end? kinda long prompt, it’s just something that i’ve not seen and would like to see how it would work?

Gnaw at the Bone, because I just can't leave these two alone. Character credit goes to @lumosinlove <3

TW** (please be gentle with yourselves!): canon shit childhoods (no graphic abuse), Walburga and Orion's A+ parenting, sibling parentification, panic attack, bad coping mechanisms (skating), and past minor injuries from said coping mechanisms

“Sirius.”

“Reg.”

His stomach twisted. His head throbbed. His mouth tacked over, lips sticky, chapped, too much, not enough. Years of it. Stars in orbit, on a collision course with anything that came too close—their gravity was inescapable and destructive to the nth degree. They ruined everything but each other. That gravity would rub and chafe and grind at their rough surfaces and it made him sick to think about it.

Oh, it made him sick to think about it.

“Sirius.”

“Reg.”

And that was it—a clipped acknowledgment from scowling lips, then resignation. Regulus disappeared down the hall with his pasta. Sirius watched him go, shook his head, and headed in the opposite direction with a white-knuckled grip on his cup.

Alright then.

“Everything okay?” Pascal ventured.

Sirius jumped, his glower lifting for a moment in surprise, as if Pascal hadn’t been sitting there for over an hour. “What?”

Pascal tilted his head toward the empty doorway and set aside the broken toaster. “Everything okay?”

His mouth dipped in a grimace; his brow wrinkled like he was trying to find the weak link in a failing play, but something simmered beneath. “We’ll figure it out,” Sirius finally answered. “We’ll—it’s Reg, you know?”

Pascal didn’t know, actually, but Sirius was gone before he could ask for an elaboration. In fact, the only thing he knew for sure was that Regulus had gone through a period of rapid character development over the past nine months and that Sirius didn’t stop loving him for a single second of it, even through the snappish attitude, even through those horrible interviews that Regulus clearly regretted. They were two sides of the same coin with the unfortunate ability to be as evasive as greased weasels.

Celeste would say he was being nosy. Pascal preferred to think of it as a natural desire to engage with his kids as a loving, supportive parent.

He looked down at the toaster, then back up at the opposing doorways and sighed. It seemed some detective work was in order.

“Remus! How are you, mon ami?”

“I’m…good?” To his credit, Remus recovered quickly and offered a light fist bump in greeting. “What’s up?”

Pascal waved a vague hand. “The usual. House is good? Dog is healthy? Boyfriend is happy?”

Bingo. A shadow flickered over Remus’ face before it smoothed out into his usual neutral friendliness. “Yeah, we’re doing great. We were thinking of repainting the living room soon, so if there’s a day you want to borrow the dog, I’m all ears.”

“Parfait, I’ll let you know. And Regulus?”

There it was again—the tension, the twitch, the passive smile. “I think Sirius is just glad to have him home. It’s really been great getting to know him. He’s a sweet kid.”

He might be, but he’s been getting on your nerves, too. If Pascal knew anything, that would piss Sirius off more than any insult Regulus hurled his way. “I’m so glad to hear it. It’s good for them to be near each other right now.”

He clapped Remus on the shoulder and stood before the younger man could respond. It wasn’t just a one-time problem, then; whatever the seething, festering thing between Sirius and Regulus was, it had seeped into their everyday function. Enough that it had even begun annoying Remus ‘Patient’ Lupin. Pascal might not be able to fix their issue, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t give them a nudge in the right direction.

Sirius was right where he left him, hunched on the bench with a whiteboard in hand, though his pen served more as a drumstick than a writing instrument as Pascal approached. The tip-tapping stopped when he ruffled Sirius’ hair and took the seat next to him. “Defense,” Sirius muttered by way of explanation. “There’s a gap. Tremzy’s a killer when he goes in for a shot, but we need to close his spot when he moves.”

Pascal hummed in agreement and propped his skates up on the boards, letting the battered wood take his weight and ease the ache. “Good eyes.”

“ ‘s what I get paid for.”

“You seem tense, mon fils.”

“Hmm?” Sirius blinked. His eye contact was pristine, but his attention was lightyears away. “Sorry, just thinking. Did you need something?”

Pascal offered a wry smile. “What, you’re too old to let me sit with you?”

The deep crease between Sirius’ brows smoothed out; he smiled softly. He blinked again; this time, a bit of him returned. Not beyond all hope of intervention, then. “Non. Desolé. I’m…I’m in my head today.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.”

A few seconds passed before Sirius nodded. Pascal watched his gaze go distant again and his cheek dimpled as he bit the flesh inside. Guilt. Perhaps frustration. A twisted mystery to solve, if Pascal had not been watching him so closely since he first blessed their threshold. It was Regulus, it was Remus and Regulus—

It was something from a time Sirius had been trying to lock down. Ghosts were hard to trap behind hasty boards, nailed haphazard and half-panicked. Sirius was better, not healed. He was safe, not exorcised. He was so goddamn brave it hurt to watch, but Pascal wasn’t foolish enough to miss the way he spooked. And Regulus was a good kid, but a fucking mess all the same.

(Privately, he questioned the decision to go headlong into university right after escaping 18 years of living hell. That was not his place to challenge and not his problem to solve.)

(But still. University? Really?)

Sirius made another note on his board. A canine tooth poked out as he worried at his lower lip. Pascal watched him fidget, hands up and over and under and between, and steadied himself with a slow exhale when Sirius began twirling his pen over his knuckles with a dull, rippling noise.

“Regulus is angry with me.”

Pascal made an impassive noise. It was Regulus.

“I think. Probably.” Sirius’ knee bounced for a five-count before going still. “He’s working through a lot. Finals were hard. It took him off-guard. He got snappy at Remus.”

Remus and Regulus. “Oh?”

“Something about changing his sheets. He didn’t like that we went in his room to clean while he was away.”

Something from a time you’ve been trying to lock down. Not mutually exclusive events, but a progression. Sirius was fixed on a far point, no longer tracking the movement of players. His hands had gone quiet.

“I think I—I think they—” Space hung between them like a bear trap. It was horrible to be right. Sirius exhaled hard and shook his head. “C’est pas grave.”

Pascal bit back his disappointment. He knew better than to think it would spill out so easily. He scooted closer on the bench, and when Sirius didn’t flinch, leaned over to bump him with a gentle shoulder. “Don’t let it eat you up, ouais? Regulus is grown. So are you. It will come in time.”

A halfhearted nod was the best he would get, it seemed. Pascal risked a soft squeeze to the back of Sirius’ neck and—there he was. The loosening of his tense shoulders, the careful lean into the contact. “We’ll talk,” Sirius said.

“Take it slow,” Pascal advised, and prayed to any god that Sirius would at least listen to that. Those who shoved their hands in the cage of a feral animal only came away bitten and rabid. For all his growth, Sirius was plenty feral without the influence of Regulus Black ripping him open again.

They watched the drills together in silence for forty-five minutes. When they were done, Sirius’ clipboard held only blank paper.

“Tuney and I were really close. As kids, I mean.”

A light, fluffy cloud passed overhead on the rushing breeze.

“We did everything together. Like, literally everything. Mom used to joke that we should’ve been twins.”

The pain in her voice was one he knew well.

“We started drifting when I hit junior high, I think.” A controlled, even breath followed the gentle sound of a dandelion being picked. A few bits of fluff floated in and out of view. “And then high school came around, and she hated my fucking guts. Shredded all my tights with a fork. Refused to look at me in the lunchroom. Mom and Dad didn’t tell her it was okay, but they didn’t stop her, either. They just kind of sat there and looked sympathetic.”

Quiet fell over them again. A strand of hair billowed over his vision for a half-second. Time for a haircut.

“I still don’t know what I did,” Lily confessed to the afternoon sun. “I still don’t think she’s forgiven me.”

Looking at Regulus now, Sirius thought he might finally understand what she meant.

The corner of Regulus’ mouth was turned down; not more than usual, but enough to be a scowl to anyone who knew where to look. Quietly, he hoped Regulus’ school friends could tell the difference. He deserved to have people like that. Sirius wasn’t sure he had explained that very well before sending him off. Or ever.

“It’s a good book,” he said.

Regulus made a noncommittal noise. He hadn’t turned a page since Sirius paused in the doorway.

Another try. Pull back to the midline, find an open corridor. “One of my favorites.”

“Je sais.”

“Why are you angry with me?”

Once upon a time, he would not have been so bold as to ask. Once upon a time, Regulus would have sunk further into his cocoon. One pale finger traced the edge of the worn paperback. “I’m not angry with you.”

You’re always a little angry with me. “You won’t look at me.”

“God forbid I’m busy.”

“You’re reading.”

“And I’m busy,” Regulus said waspishly. “Go get Remus to take you for a walk, or something.”

Maybe this was where Lily had failed. In one way or another, she and Petunia had missed each other in the middle. He could recall those six terrible, lonely years with too much clarity to let Regulus push him away. Losing him would never be worth an argument won. “I want to spend time with you.”

“Then get your own book.” Regulus muttered something else under his breath that Sirius didn’t care to look into.

He swallowed down a sigh and picked one at random off the shelf, then settled down on the couch opposite Regulus’ armchair. The words could have been in Portuguese, for all they registered in his mind. The edges were soft from many hands. It might have been Remus’, or from the secondhand bookstore in town. God, it could have been one of Sirius’ own favorites for all he knew. He was working on knowing more of those.

The color blue, but a specific shade.

Tater-tot casserole, preferably with meat, acceptable with just cheese.

Books with adventures, books he could run away in.

Poutine with extra gravy.

Henley shirts that stopped at his elbow.

Hoodies—not the zip-fronts—made of heavier fabric. The ones where Remus had fussed with the cuffs.

“What’s your book—”

The sudden snap of cover on page made him wince; an irritated grumble-sigh hung on its coattails as Regulus swept out of the room without a backward glance. Sirius’ stomach turned, and turned, and turned. He always fucked it up. He always tried too hard. He shut his book in silence and set it on the floor, and went to get his skates.

I’m not an infant. Bared teeth and clenched fists. A charge in the air, a snake ready to strike. And you are not my fucking mother.

Remus wrinkled his nose and scrubbed harder at the grout.

Nightmarish, is what it was. The summer had been sun-soaked and semi-charmed with only the awkwardness of getting-to-know-you’s to taint it. But that was Remus’ perfect wheelhouse—polite conversation, buttering up, small talk to ease Regulus into a world that wasn’t actively trying to shred him. It had all worked so well.

He didn’t know what went wrong. Worse, he didn’t know how to fix any of it. Regulus was constantly boiling with silent fury like a kettle about to blow and it was terrible. Every second Sirius and Regulus existed within each others’ eyeline was hell. And they were living together. For twelve more days.

If they all survived this, Remus was going to take himself out for a little treat. One that did not involve scrubbing the kitchen grout just to avoid running into either of the ticking time bombs.

Regulus’ hissing colliding with the low, furious timbre of Sirius’ voice was not something Remus wanted to experience again, in this life or the next. Nobody won. Everybody lost in one way or another. Sirius got angry and Regulus got angry and Sirius got defensive and Regulus got mean, flat-out and full-send. Sirius snapped back, Regulus stormed off, and Remus spent the better part of his night assuring Sirius he was not turning into his parents. Rinse, repeat, wish for death.

Commotion kicked up in the living room and went quiet in the same breath—Remus paused to watch Regulus stomp off with a book in one white-knuckled hand and listened carefully for the aftershocks.

The house inhaled with him. The office door closed hard. Sirius’ footsteps were rhythmic as a metronome all the way up the stairs and back down again—Remus bit his tongue when he saw the skates clenched in one hand—and remained that way until the basement door shut him out.

Then, and only then, did Remus let a quiet, “shit” slip through his teeth.

Pull back to the midline. Pull back to the midline. Watch, pull back, find your corridor, strike.

The puck skated past the goal without so much as a whisper of net. Sirius hardly heard it hit the boards.

Remus looked faintly ill when they arrived at practice; Pascal was grateful for the early warning to prepare himself for Sirius’ perma-scowl and overall vibe of ultimate distress. The change in the atmosphere nearly made his ears pop. Leo made a hasty retreat from the locker room after Kasey, looking as if he had taken psychic damage, and several others watched him leave with unbridled longing.

“On-ice in five,” Sirius said. Ordered. Everything about him looked incorrectly articulated. “We’re running drills, then doing dry lands.”

Not a soul dared to try the usual bitching and moaning. All cheerful conversation had met its abrupt end.

Cole lowered his head and slunk out the door like a stray bit of shadow. The rest of them followed suit within a minute or two, save for James, who steered Sirius into the ice room with a firm hand on his back.

Plastic buckles clinked softly in the empty space left. “They’re worse?”

Remus slumped forward and muffled a groan in both hands. “They’re going to fucking kill each other.”

“Any idea what happened?”

Remus spread his hands with a lost expression.

“Did this start when Regulus came home?”

“It’s just been the past three days.” Remus shook his head, leaning his elbows heavily on his knees with his pads half-done. “I can’t—Reg was fine when he got here. He was fine through Christmas. Sirius mentions we changed his sheets before he came home, and now he wants my head on a pike and my boyfriend to explode.”

Pascal picked at the peeling logo of his shorts. Sheets. What was so special about the sheets? “Were they new sheets?”

“Same ones he used all summer. I literally just washed them and put them back.”

“So…he didn’t like that you were in his space?” Remus half-shrugged, clearly frazzled by the mere memory. “You know, Adele hates it when we go into her room. Even to drop laundry off, or help her clean.”

“No, yeah, Jules is the same. That’s what started it.”

“Started…?” Understanding crept up his throat like battery acid. “He didn’t.”

“It was bad,” Remus said weakly.

“How bad?”

The laces of Remus’ skates dragged on the ground while he shuffled in his stall. The lines of his arms were rigid and upset; he scratched at the back of his wrist, curled over like he was trying to shield his middle. “His feet bled again.”

Pascal closed his eyes. He should have pushed harder against the basement rink eight years ago. He shouldn’t have let Sirius leave so soon.

He forgot, sometimes, how very alone Sirius had been.

“I fixed it,” Remus said after a minute. Of course you did. He sniffed, shaking his head like he could hear Pascal’s thoughts. “It wasn’t too bad. Blisters, mostly, some hotspots. Made him keep the bandaids on for practice. I hate—Dumo, I hate this. I hate living in it, I hate seeing them tear each other apart. It’s so quiet.”

“They need to stop,” Pascal agreed. Remus kept looking at him for—a solution, he realized. Terrible hope. Something desperate and fragile, a young man coming to a mentor for help he just…couldn’t give.

He looked away first. Remus’ exhale felt like a knife.

“It’s me, it’s me, it’s me, it’s me—”

“No, no, no,” Remus soothed somewhere in the catastrophe of the world.

Sirius spit, again, and pressed his hands over his eyes, again, and willed the bathroom floor to stop digging into his knees and just swallow him up already. His skin crawled and he wanted to scratch but he couldn’t take his hands away or the room would spin and tip him into nothingness.

Maybe he belonged there. But he had managed to hurt Regulus when he was a country away, so perhaps he wouldn’t even be safe in the ether.

Remus’ hand was cool on the small of his back as he frantically tried to keep his dinner down. He didn’t rub. He didn’t tap. He didn’t so much as twitch. Sirius listed to the side and flashed a hand out to steady himself. The pain of his wrist hitting the cabinet didn’t even register until Remus hissed in sympathy and took his weight in the bend of his arm.

“I am treating him just like they did,” Sirius rasped through the smoke pouring from inside him.

“No.” Remus was begging now. He sounded so tired. He was begging. The room swam in the kaleidoscope of suffering that he really should be used to by now, and Sirius pressed his elbows harder into the toilet seat as his ears began to ring.

You are not my mother.

Sirius gasped in a too-hot breath. It had been directed at Remus, not him. But.

But he was.

It was so sick and twisted and his stomach made sure to tell him that with a real-world example of both those words.

You are not my mother.

She wasn’t, either. Their nannies had come close. Sirius missed them sometimes (often) (aching) (with the hurt of a child).

Remus was not Regulus’ mother but he had been, in the same scream-worthy way he had been his father, too, and his brother. He couldn’t think too hard about how he had been the only one to cuddle Regulus without crying and fuck, there he went, Sirius the drama queen making the whole damn world about him.

“Okay, okay.” Arms came around him, easing the slicing pain of the sobs that caught him in fishhooks. The back of his hand hit the floor. His knees hurt like a bruise. His face was smushed against Remus’ chest and it really should have been uncomfortable. Remus made a noise of sympathy and gathered all the gross, slimy, bits of a Sirius-puddle into his arms because he was a saint. The patron saint of fucking messes, and Sirius was the messiest sinner of them all.

“I’m so horrible to him,” he sobbed, hitching and sticky. Probably incoherent. He mumbled. She hated it when he mumbled. “I’m so horrible.”

You are not my mother.

“It was me.” He gulped for air. Remus’ dizzying words fell quiet at the interruption. He added another note to his list of penance. “It was me, it was, I tried.”

“What did you try?” Remus’ fingertips brushed away a loose, sweaty lock and the sobs came harder after that, wracking him down to his organs, past the precious cradle of his ribs. A warm palm cupped the back of his head and Sirius heard a strangled noise interrupt his own endless babbling. He didn’t know he could make that sound. With the way his throat and body were angled against the unmovable pillar of Remus, though, it shouldn’t have surprised him.

“I was—I was his mother.” It was so hard to breathe through the gasping. “I didn’t know what I was doing but I was his mother but I won’t be her.”

“Oh, god.” Remus sounded weak for a saint. There went another beautiful thing, ruined in Sirius’ messy clumsy hands. And somehow, in the darkness, in the Blackness, a kiss nestled just near his temple.

He couldn’t help but go still, then limp, as all the fight and fear siphoned from his flooded lungs.

Remus breathed like he was going to speak several times before he did. “There are other ways.” His voice was heartbreak. Sirius closed his burning eyes. “Sirius—baby, you know my mom. You know Effie, and Celeste, and you know Lily.”

Lily. He knew Lily. Her green eyes, so much pain and regret. Don’t be like me, Pads. Her green eyes, the way she looked at Harry, the way they matched. Sirius had his mother’s eyes. Had she ever looked at him like that?

“There are other ways to be someone’s mother. And…” His hands stuttered, then began to move again, scritching the back of Sirius’ head. That feeling usually made him go comatose in their bed. “Regulus was trying to hurt me when he said that. You know that, right?”

I am not an infant. And you are not my fucking mother.

Remus kissed him again. The shell of his ear, this time. “It wasn’t about you. I promise.”

But it was. There on the bathroom floor, it was.

The woman was watching him with infuriating patience. Sometimes—more often than he cared to count—she would even look away to her clipboard or her phone, and that was even worse. Regulus knew how to be ignored. He fucking hated her nonchalant attention.

Either look at me and pay attention or ignore me properly, he thought with enough force that it should have beamed into her brain directly.

Heather chewed at the corner of her lip and checked her texts again.

“Aren’t you supposed to ask questions?” he finally muttered.

She looked up, milk-mild. “Are you ready to answer them?”

You can’t trick me that easily. “Are they worth my time?”

“I certainly think so.” She tilted her head back and forth for a moment. “But it’s not up to me to decide. That’s your choice.”

“So I can just walk out right now?”

“Sure.”

Regulus only let himself pause for a second before regaining his composure. “I’m pretty sure my brother would murder me if I did that.”

“Your brother didn’t set up this appointment.” A smile made her face even kinder, like a storybook bear. “And I’m not allowed to discuss my other patients’ homicidal tendencies. But yes, Mr. Black—”

“Don’t call me that or I’ll puke, I promise.”

“—yes, Regulus, you are welcome to leave whenever you feel like it. I can’t legally force you into therapy and I don’t particularly want to. If you would prefer to sit here quietly, we’ve still got twenty minutes left.”

He bit the inside of his cheek.

“I have a spare crossword,” she offered.

Gifts. Of course. What an awful woman. He plucked absently at the threads of the armrest and slouched into the too-squishy cushions.

Silence reigned supreme for another five minutes and twenty-four seconds before Heather stretched her wrists and smiled at him again. “It’s good to see you, Regulus.”

“You don’t have to say that,” he snorted.

“I know.”

“So don’t.”

“Alright.” She tapped the side of her thumb on her clipboard. “I’m glad you came back. Is that better?”

“Will you stop with the mind games, please?”

Heather’s eyes softened. His skin crawled. “Regulus, I don’t want you to be uncomfortable in my office. I would vastly prefer it if you did something you enjoy with this time, rather than forcing yourself to come and sit there and be miserable. I’ll sit with you if you’d like, but it seems like that’s not helping.”

His lip curled against his will. “So Sirius told you I’m miserable?”

“I haven’t spoken to Sirius lately.”

“You should. He’s a disaster.” Ignore that I’m a screaming teenage trainwreck.

“If he gets in touch with me, I’ll happily make time.”

“He won’t,” Regulus informed her. He wondered if she would stop him. Was there a point where he was no longer allowed to talk about her other patients? He already felt pathetic enough for refusing to use any therapist except the one Sirius had vouched for.

Heather hummed. “Guess that’s for him to know, and for me to find out.”

Push push push push push— “He’s been a mess. He’s doing that implosion thing he does when I’m mean to him. It’s like he thinks everyone in the whole world depends on him to be happy, and the second they’re not, it’s his fault.”

“And have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Been mean to him?”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve been terrible.” Regulus frowned slightly and sat up. “You know I’m not a nice person, don’t you? You should know that before we start anything.”

Heather seemed interested, but not confused. Infuriating. “Okay.”

“Sirius is the nice one.”

“Okay.” She nodded for a moment. “Why is Sirius nice, but you’re not?”

“You’re not—” He bit his tongue. Being mean to Heather was not what he came here to do. Wasting his time with someone who didn’t understand was not the point of this. “Sirius would have been much happier as a suburban family’s well-loved dog. He’s good like that.”

“Okay.”

“I was ignored for three-quarters of my childhood and have half a dozen complexes and attachment issues because of it. I am not a nice person at all, and so I take it out on Sirius because—I don’t know, I think it’s supposed to feel good, since he had everything and then he left me.” She was still looking at him. Mild and kind. Was everyone in Gryffindor obtuse enough to think he was kidding? “Heather, I am telling you that I’m petty and mean and use my older brother as an emotional punching bag because our parents fucked us up. There is nothing you can say to help me.”

“Supposed to feel good?”

Regulus blinked. “Pardon?”

“You said it was ‘supposed to feel good’ when you’re mean to your brother.” Heather rested her head on her hand. He wasn’t sure when she had put her clipboard aside. “Does it feel good?”

“Oh my god, no,” Regulus laughed hoarsely. “No, it feels like I’m the worst person alive. Why does that change anything?”

I just wanted them to like me.

It hadn’t even been about love, in the end. He had given up on that. Forget about pride—that was a lost cause. But he had yearned to be liked, to have a smile turned on him like the ones he only remembered in blurry dreams between sleep and wakefulness. Their father had light crow’s feet by his eyes. They were probably deeper by now. Their love was never going to happen but it really would have been enough to simply be liked. Regulus had been bright enough to stop hanging on to them far sooner; oh, yes, he had always been the smart one.

Heather had seemed sad when he said that. Sirius hated making her sad.

Pascal thought he knew where the precipice was. He thought they had more time to reel that celestial disaster back from the brink before they tipped over it, clawing at each other for grip and for hurt. Looking back, he felt like an utter fool for thinking he could have stopped them.

“You fucking liar!”

“I wouldn’t lie to you!”

“Yes you would, you always do that!”

“I—” Sirius’ mouth snapped closed; his jaw ticked with tension. “I wouldn’t—”

“You do,” Regulus insisted angrily. “Our whole childhood, and now this. I won’t fall for it anymore.”

“I told you, I didn’t go through your things—”

“Stop it.”

“It was just changing the goddamn sheets—”

“Stop it.”

“God forbid I want you to sleep on something clean!” Sirius shouted back.

Regulus flushed red, bright against his dark hair. “Don’t yell at me!”

“Are you—you started yelling first, you pain in the ass!”

“Oh, I’m just a pain in the ass now?”

Sirius threw his hands in the air with a furious noise and folded them at his nape, shaking his head. His stomach hurt and trembled. His throat was tight, and every swallow had to fight its way around an iron fist. The inside of his cheek was raw and tender from his teeth. “You’re fucking delusional.”

Remus straightened fast. “Woah—”

“I’m delusional?” Regulus laughed humorlessly, hysterically, all dry bonfire wit. “I’m delusional? I’m not the one that tried to start a brand-new family when the old one failed!”

The insides of his ribs were scorched black. “Don’t bring Remus into this—”

“I’m talking about him!” Regulus’ arm shot out. One pale, skeletal finger hovered in midair, an executioner’s axe. A hairline tremor shivered over his skin; his eyes gleamed.

Dumo had both hands on Sirius’ broken toaster, and both eyes locked on Regulus’ hand in shock.

“You had it all planned out, didn’t you?” Regulus’ face contorted. “From the second they called your name on the television. You were going to billet and you were going to go to him and fuck the rest of us, is that it?”

Sirius couldn’t feel his hands. I still don’t know what I did. I still don’t think she’s forgiven me. “Regulus, no.”

But Regulus just nodded, tears welling up despite the guillotine edge of his voice. “You did. And thank fuck for that, because then Logan came along and a brand-new brother just dropped himself in your lap without any effort at all. Your perfect parents, your perfect brother, your perfect, perfect life. How convenient.”

He shook his head. “No. No, it’s not like that.”

But.

But it was. A little bit, it was. Dumo wasn’t his choice but he was Sirius’ escape. And Logan…Logan had been so alone, so afraid, so young, hiding under his baseball caps like Regulus used to hide under his toques. Sirius had caught too many sidelong glances of dark curls and bitten back the wrong name those first few months.

Regulus could smell it on him. Could read Sirius’ guilt like a child’s book. His eye twitched. “I told you not to lie.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Sirius said hoarsely.

“I don’t care.”

“It was not my intent—”

“Fuck your intent.”

Lightning spit up inside him and he choked it down, tasting iron as it went. “Will you let me speak? Or are you going to stand there and yell until you feel better?”

Regulus’ face turned blotchy with rage. “Don’t patronize me.”

“Then stop acting like a child,” he snapped back.

“You sound like—”

“Do not.”

Something burnt coated his tongue as the lightning licked off it in a whipcrack and sparked between them. Regulus looked away, fists balled tight against his sides.

Sirius let the burning out on a controlled breath. “Do not bring them into this,” he continued carefully, even as a scream built under his lungs, kicking its feet and howling. “Do not bring her into this. I am telling you right now that you will not like how it goes for you.”

Regulus’ mouth twisted, petulant and bitter. “You’re really going to threaten me? Now?”

“I don’t threaten, Regulus. I win.”

“Because everything is a competition,” he sneered.

“Because you know better than to start that fight.” Sirius caught his gaze and held it with clenched, snarling teeth. Regulus knew better. Always the smart one, always levelheaded. Regulus, the wordsmith, and Sirius, blowing up the ground he stood on as long as he didn’t come out on the bottom. Locked jaw or locked antlers, dragging them both over the canyon edge before any thought of retreat. He had shouted himself voiceless before bending to their father. A simple locked door couldn’t block the endless screaming matches from Regulus’ memory.

“This isn’t a tantrum,” Regulus said at last.

The slavering dog in Sirius’ head sat back and eased its hold. He jerked his chin. “Then get to the point.”

“You left.”

“I was always going to leave.”

Regulus flinched, but to his credit, kept going. “You replaced us. Me.”

“Logan was never you.” Logan, young and scared, but not Regulus. Never Regulus. It had only ever taken a moment for Sirius to right himself, and less than that to be buried alive in guilt.

Regulus stared at the kitchen table. His nailbeds were white where he clutched the back of a chair. They’d have to get more iron into him while he was home; Sirius didn’t trust the university food. “You never came back.”

“For holidays—”

“You never came back,” Regulus repeated, louder. He blinked fast a few times, inhaling sharply. “You were never there for more than a day or two. You’d go dead the second we sat down together. You never—you never came back.”

“Regulus, that house was going to kill me.”

It came out too soft for the weight of it in the room. Regulus closed his eyes and leaned forward, stretching his arms with an unsteady exhale. Sirius kept his focus despite the building sting in his eyes but he could feel Dumo’s gaze on his neck, could hear Remus’ short inhale. There was no coming back from this. Ever onward, clawing his way out of the depths.

“One way or another, it was,” he continued quietly. “So, no. I didn’t go back. I won’t.”

The blur of Regulus tilted his face toward the ceiling with another shaky breath, still blinking fruitlessly as drops of mirrored light slipped down his cheeks. “Then how—?” He broke off and cleared his throat hard enough to make Sirius wince. “How could you leave me there?”

“I didn’t want to.”

It meant nothing; they both knew that. It still felt right to get it out there.

“I thought you’d come back,” Regulus said. “I thought you’d try. Once—once you had your first paycheck, or something.”

It hurt so much more to hear old, broken hope than anger. “They knew where I lived.”

“Then we’d move.” We. A child’s daydream. They made me hate you, but I never did. A phone number memorized for six and a half years. “We’d go somewhere else.” Regulus ran his sleeve under his nose and shook his head. “I was so alone. I don’t—” He looked up and immediately, his lip curled in disgust. “Oh, god, don’t look at me like that.”

“Reg—”

“Like a fucking puppy, merde.” He yanked his sleeves down over his hands and scrubbed viciously at his face, lingering over his eyes a second longer before letting them dangle at his sides again. He sniffled, then did a double-take when he saw Remus and Dumo on the other side of the room. “Why are you still here?”

“Um.” Remus glanced over at Sirius, but he had nothing to offer. “It…felt wrong to leave.”

Regulus rolled his eyes, though the effect was dampened by his red cheeks and slight pout. “You are all so codependent.”

“Don’t be mean,” Sirius chided instinctively.

“Don’t tell me what to do.” Regulus gave him a quick up-and-down look. “We’re both ugly criers. Shit. Yell at me again.”

“…no?”

“Just do it, it’ll make me feel better.”

“I’m not going to yell at you.”

“Don’t make me insult you more. My throat hurts.”

“Do you want a hug?”

“No.” They stood in silence for another fifteen seconds. Wool socks scuffed on the floor. Regulus gnawed at the inside of his lip, then stepped around the side of the table an inch. “If it’ll make you feel better.”

He was over six feet tall, now. His hockey muscle had yet to fade. He felt—

Small. He felt safe. A shudder ran down his aching back. It had been so long since he felt safe.

“Desolé.” Sirius’ voice vibrated in the burrow of his chest and Regulus pressed his face to it as hard as he could. “Desolé, mon etoile.”

Tears snuck up on him in bursts; he pushed closer, closer, tucking his arms between them and shuffling forward until he could stand on the front of Sirius’ stupid slippers and let the cold floor fall away. He was tired of drowning, but it was hard to remember how to let the water out.

Sirius sniffed above him. The kiss to the top of his head was more of a hard bump than anything else. His arms were tight and warm around Regulus’ back, one palm cupping the back of his head. “I never forgot you.”

“Je sais,” Regulus croaked back.

“I never forgot you.”

Don’t, don’t, don’t. He coughed to clear the brackish muck from his lungs. He wasn’t pretty like this, and he knew it. But neither was Sirius, so maybe that was okay. Just this once. He could be held like a child, just this once. It was a long time before they spoke again.

“I don’t want to see Heather anymore.” He breathed in Sirius’ laundry soap and the same deodorant they had both been wearing for years. The rushing flood in his head had become a stream, had become a trickle. His heartbeat pulsed behind his eye. “I want—I want to see someone else.”

Sirius’ shoulders relaxed enough that he could feel each muscle release. “Good.”

“I still haven’t told my friends about—the everything.” He felt Sirius nod and gathered two fistfuls of his hoodie. “I want to stay at school.”

“D’accord.”

“What if they find out?” He held on tighter, pressed his face to Sirius’ calm heart. “What happens when they find out how horrible I am?”

Sirius huffed. “You’re not horrible.”

“I am.” That was the deal. He was the villain so Sirius could be the hero. He was the junkyard. Spare parts to be hosed off and trotted out when they needed him.

“Regulus, you’re nineteen.”

He frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Everyone’s horrible at nineteen.”

“What if I’m…” He wracked his brain for something smart. It blew a raspberry at him and fucked off back to sleep. “…extra horrible?”

Sirius sighed, scratching lightly behind his ears. Regulus felt his eyelids droop against his will. “If you turn out to be extra horrible by—I don’t know, 21, we’ll talk.”

“What if they fucked us both up too bad?”

He winced—Sirius’ steady motions stuttered briefly. He hadn’t meant to let that one slither out from its careful cage. That was a thought for sleepless nights in a cold hotel bed and watching the sun rise in a strange city through dry, tired eyes. When his hands were blistered and bleeding, he’d wonder whether that Black blood could ever really be gone from him.

Sirius’ head was a gentle pressure on his own. “Then it’s us against the world, isn’t it?”

Gryffindor airport was quiet at 7 in the morning. Dumo stifled a yawn in the back of his hand as he passed the rolling suitcase to a boy that was far too awake for the early hour, in his opinion. Youths.

“You have everything?” Sirius checked. “You’ll be safe?”

“I’m literally fine.” Regulus arched a brow. “And less than four hours away, if you speed.”

“You’ll call when you land.”

“I’ll text.”

Sirius wrinkled his nose. “If you don’t, I’m filing a missing person report.”

Regulus turned to Remus. “Can you keep him on a leash? Or just sedate him?”

“You think I haven’t tried?” Remus laughed.

Sirius fixed them both with a weak scowl. “Will you just get on the plane?”

“I thought you wanted me to stay.”

“I want you—” Sirius took Regulus by the shoulders and turned him around with a firm grip. “—to have fun and live life and not die. The bar is on the ground. Do not dig under it.”

“Killjoy.”

“Pest.” Sirius kissed the top of his head. “Fly safe. Text.”

“Wait until I’m on the place before you start crying. I don’t want your gross emotions all over me.”

“Well, we can’t disturb your delicate sensibilities.”

“Sirius?”

“Reg.”

Regulus paused, laden with his duffel and rolling bag, and kicked the toe of Sirius’ sneaker lightly. “Love you.”

Sirius’ smile was close-lipped and small and brighter than the rising sun outside the massive bay windows. He kicked him back, even more gently. “Get on your plane.”

#sirius black #regulus black #pascal dumais #remus lupin #sweater weather #vaincre #lumosinlove #my fic #fanfic #coops #hurt/ comfort #angst with a happy ending #black brothers #parentification #panic attack #sibling problems #therapy #look they're working on it okay

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