'where we are now' remus lupin & regulus black

High road

"Should've took the high road, now my days have all turned black. Instead I took the low road, I figured out it's something that we both lack,"
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REGULUS BLACK

This is it.

Here I go.

All you have to do is knock, Regulus.

The fat lady already let you in, you know he's alone.

Just knock.

Three short wraps at the door. Just like when I would knock at his door when I would have a bad dream as we were kids. In some sad way I want him to already know who is waiting on the other side of the door for him.

The doors pull open less than an inch, and an eye identical to my own peers through the crack. The eye stares at me for several slow, soundless seconds.

"Regulus?" Sirius sort of sighs sort of gasps.

I bounce on my heels, holding my hands behind my back. "May I come in, brother?"

There's a moment of contemplation. Of genuine unease from my own brother at the thought of letting me into his room. It makes me want to fucking punch him. Yeah, that'll show him uneasy.

Wordlessly, he opens the door all the way and steps aside.

As I enter the room I see a mess of four beds. All shared products sprawled across the room in a somehow comforting mess. We stand silently and awkwardly.

"Well?" Sirius ask, crossing his arms. "What is it? Come to tell me of another achievement of yours?"

I turn away from him, look at the window. All the snow is starting to melt under the pressure of the sun. The room is warm but I shiver, these thin uniforms are basically just a second skin.

The last time I spoke with Sirius, I had told him how mother and father were buying me a new owl for getting top marks in class. They had never boughten him an owl, said they did not need any letters from Gryffindor being seen on their doorstep. I only told him because I thought it would hurt...in some petty, unhealed childhood trauma type of way, it would hurt him.

He had no emotion on his face before he said, 'What good is an owl if you have no friends or family left to write to?'

I could tell the question was genuine. His words hadn't been preplanned so they could cut and sting viciously. Yet, somehow, that made them hurt worse. Made the cut deeper. This cut still bleeds.

And when I walked away, I muttered under my breath just loud enough where he would barely hear it. 'I hate you.'

I wish I had never went to visit him that day.

"I wish you had stayed," I say. It sounds weird coming out of my mouth. This secret I have held onto for so long. But it also sounds right. It is exactly what has needed to be said this whole time. The truth. "I do not hate you,"

The silence swells and starts pounding in my ears. I hear his breath going ragged and I am sure if I faced him I would see the disgust on his face, and the pride in my patheticness.

"I stayed, Reg..." Siris finally whispers. "I loved you. Some days, it wasn't enough—and towards the end, well, towards the end it wasn't enough even on my best days,"

I try to let his words register in my mind. They don't.

You should not have left.

You are still one of us.

You are still half of me.

You should have taken me.

Why didn't you take me?

"Do you still know my favourite anecdote?" Is all I can utter. Trick question, because while as kids we knew everything about each other...this was one thing I kept to myself.

I hear his feet shift behind me. "No, I do not,"

"Do you still believe myths can save you? Foolish creature. Let me be clear: every version of the story ends with you being slaughtered." I turn to face him now, his eyes are watery and his face a bit red. "Anecdote of the Pig;"

Every version of the story ends with us being slaughtered.

"Why are you here Regulus?" Sirius sounds exasperated. "To torture me?"

"I..." Sirius raises his brows in expectancy and I cannot form an answer that sounds half alright.

Do not beat around the bush, Regulus.

"Mother and father know of a relationship I was having with a muggle-born, they want me to come home for holiday," The weight of my words sink into his skull, the gravity of this type of situation. Horror and sorrow sets in on his face. Sirius—perhaps better than anyone else—knows what's in store for me. "There are...things...I can't tell you. But they make me fear I may never return."

He paces up towards me. Grabs my face in his hands."Why did you do this Regulus? Why would you risk your life for her?" He is angry and he doesn't understand.

I do not expect him to.

I do not want him to.

"I am not living a life, brother. I had nothing to risk," I tell him, "And to be without the hope she brought into my life, well, I might as well have killed myself a long time ago."

There is a pause in the room. Sirius regards me, still holding my face. Eyes searching my own for something.

"Hope is the greatest torture there is brother," Sirius sighs like a parent sighs at their naive child. "After despair there is calm, but there is nothing after hope. Nothing but the knowledge you didn't get what you had hoped for."

This is the difference between Sirius and I. What he cannot have for life he does not want at all. However, I know I cannot have anything for long so the pain of knowing I will lose something is not the biggest burden.

Or was not, until recently.

The complication of pain is, I cannot feel my brothers.

And he cannot feel mine.

I guess this is also the essential mercy of pain.

"Do not be naïve. There is no knowledge in death."

"You are not going to die because of this Regulus. I will make certain of it,"

"If they do not kill me, they will make certain I wish I was dead."

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song: high road by the cults (absolute banger)

thanks for all the love recently <3