Chapter Text
Regulus Arcturus Black was about to lose his mind.
His parents were acting like total racist assholes, they just took him off the phone plan, and he had a year and a half left before he could actually get his own bank account. Being sixteen sucked for a lot of people, but it especially sucked when you had no friends, your dick of a mom controlled your whole life, and the only person you ever really cared about (your stupid punk idiot of a brother) fucked off to California, leaving you in the middle of fucking Iowa, of all places. Iowa didn’t even sound like a real state. What the hell kind of name was that, anyway? It was literally ¾ vowels. Fucking stupid.
But wait! It somehow got worse! His bitch of a mom didn’t stop there! The town she chose as her evil lair had a population of under a thousand people, all of which were white as fuck, so you know what that means! Yeah, they were all almost as conservative as Walpurga.
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Having such a shitty mom, Regulus had tried openly expressing himself a total of two (2) times in his life, both ending in relative disaster. The first time was when he was fifteen, the day his brother Sirius and his friend James left.
James’ parents had been wanting to leave forever anyways, and James always got whatever he wanted, so they just packed up and moved to the Golden State. Nobody in town was really surprised by this, but the fact that James convinced them to take Sirius with them- now that was a twist.
Anyways. It was all very sudden, nobody could have seen it coming, it broke his mother’s heart, blah blah blah. The whole town had been saying the same bullshit about it for the past year, and nobody ever seemed to pick up on the idea that maybe, just maybe, a teenager wouldn’t want to have constant conversations about the worst time in his life.
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It had started just like any other Saturday, with his mother yelling at Sirius. Something about how James was a bad influence, why couldn’t he be more like Regulus, what the hell did he have to be tired for, was he doing drugs… The usual. The main difference this time was that Sirius wasn’t yelling back.
Regulus probably should’ve picked up on that as the first warning sign, but he was a little preoccupied with trying to fall back asleep. When he finally rolled out of bed at half past ten and wandered into the hall past his brother’s room, Sirius was already packed, and was pulling the last few posters off the wall.
“Not that these will ever see the light of day again,” he laughed to himself, and slid his finger under the tape of another random model in a bikini.
Regulus cleared his throat awkwardly. “Where the hell do you think you’re going? Also, I thought you loved those posters? Why the fuck would you go to all that effort to keep them up if you don’t give a shit, if you're not even gonna ever look at them again?"
Sirius spun around to face the door, almost falling over in the process and trying his best to play it cool, leaving the poster to hang awkwardly from one corner.
“First of all, brother dear, Jamie and his parents have decided to move on to greener pastures. In the spirit of camaraderie and wanting to get the hell out of this hick town, I have generously offered to accompany him. And second, don't play dumb, you know as well as I do those posters were there to piss off our darling mother. They’ve served their purpose, and now I don’t ever want to look at another half-dressed woman again. Honestly, I would’ve thought you of all people would understand that, what with you also being gay and all.”
Regulus froze. All the blood in his body seemed to go somewhere else for a good five seconds, and he felt rather suddenly like he was going to be sick.
“How did you- what the hell are you talking about? You don’t know shit about me, why the fuck are you trying to accuse me of, of what? Being, like, secretly in love with your best friend or something? Why would you-” He crumpled to the floor, carefully pushing the door closed.
“Sirius, you can’t just say things like that. What if Mother heard you?”
Sirius snorted. “Fuck that raggedy old bitch. I don’t care what she hears me say, and you shouldn’t either. She doesn’t have any real power. What’s the worst she can do, report you to the PTA?” He shook his head and laughed, as though the idea of Walpurga Black being angry was somehow amusing rather than terrifying.
Regulus stared at his brother in disbelief. “What the hell is wrong with you? We don’t all have friends we can just up and leave with to New York-”
“Los Angeles,” Sirius interrupted.
“Whatever, Los Angeles then! Either way, you never understood that you have people to fall back on if you fuck up, and I don’t. Yeah, she could call the PTA- or she could send me to conversion therapy. Or she could literally kill me and get away with it. She’s a white, upper middle class, conservative American citizen living in the shittiest of shit towns. The worst she’d get is a slap on the wrist and a few dirty looks. How have you somehow gone sixteen years with this monster without realizing just how evil she is? And how,” his voice cracked awfully and he took a deep breath before continuing in a whisper. “How have you gone fifteen years without realizing I can’t be like you? I’m not brave, Sirius. I’m just a kid, and she scares me.”
Sirius clenched his jaw, looking up at the ceiling, covered in glow-in-the-dark stars. “Reggie, nobody’s going to just hand shit to you. I have people I can fall back on because I actually made an effort to make friends in school. It’s not my fault you do everything Mom says, and you don’t get to treat me like shit for having James in my life. I don’t have the time for this, anyway. James’ parents will be here at eleven.” He took a deep breath and settled in next to Regulus, leaning his head back against the wall, in contrast to his brother, who currently had his head tucked between his knees and seemed to be trying not to cry.
“Look, Reg. I shouldn’t be annoyed that you always play the defense, but I am. You never stand up for yourself, and then you complain that nobody else will."
He opened and closed his hand a couple times, watching the tendons move under his skin.
You’re right, though, that I should’ve stuck up for you more. I should have been there a little more, instead of spending all my time at James’. But I’m trying now. So, if it isn’t too late…” He glanced at Regulus, sighing. “Would you come with me? Please? Effie and Monty have already asked about a million times, and James doesn’t want to leave you here either, and even though it’s technically, legally, kidnapping, they think we can probably get away with it if we…”
Regulus stopped listening around the same time Sirius mentioned James. What was the point? He already knew the stupid jock hated him; Regulus was always hanging around for no reason and embarrassing himself at practice. It was a miracle Regulus had ever gotten on the team at all, and he was literally never actually on the field. The team probably laughed about him when he wasn’t around, and James probably thought he was a nerd, and annoying, and even right now, the jerk was probably with someone from the team talking shit, shoving his stupid hair out of his stupid eyes that can’t even see without glasses. His stupid, ridiculous, cute, AWFUL glasses.
Oh, by the way, you know earlier? When Regulus said he wasn’t in love with his brother’s best friend? Yeah, so that was a fucking lie.
Okay, well, love was a big word he wasn’t quite ready to deal with yet, but James was ridiculously hot, and Regulus was ridiculously aware of this.
He tilted his head towards his brother as he finished his rant and looked at Regulus expectantly. No, hopefully.
“So, Reg, what do you think? D’you wanna get out of buttfuck nowhere and move to the big city with your big brother?”
Anger boiled up inside Regulus, and he didn't know, or care, if it was anywhere close to rational, because what the fuck was Sirius even talking about? This would never work, nobody could ever really escape their mother, especially not him. No matter where they went, she would find them and make their lives hell. Regulus was perfectly happy to wait it out until she died, take the inheritance and do whatever the hell he wanted.
How would they live without her? It’s not like they could depend on their father for support, he was completely useless and hardly ever left his study anyway. There was nobody in the world that could control her, and nobody that could save Regulus from her except (maybe) the Grim Reaper. He was okay with that, he had made his peace with that- and Sirius was going to risk it all, risk their mother’s wrath and being written out of a will with more zeros than your average computer code? No, this… This wasn’t right. He had to stop him, he had to do something. He had to- he had to answer the question.
Fuck, this was harder than it ought to be.
He tried to take a few deep breaths to calm down, but he felt like he was drowning. He could practically see his ancestors looking down in disdain, waiting for him to make the right choice. The only choice.
“Sirius-” His voice broke and he squeezed his eyes shut. “Please, just go. I can't convince you not to, so just leave. She won’t chase you too much if you piss her off enough, so I suggest you make a huge scene on your way out. Make her feel like she still has some amount of control over the situation, and fucking leave before she has the chance to figure out where you’re going. Get your shit, and don’t you fucking dare ask me again, because I won’t go with you.”
Sirius sighed miserably. “I know you won’t, Reg. I just thought- I guess I just thought maybe you’d at least want to. You can tell the soccer guys I got murdered, maybe you can get enough sympathy points to get on the field for once. God knows you’re just as good as the rest of those idiots, and twice as fucking fast.”
Regulus smiled, all bitterness and irony. “Ha. Funny.” He sighed, rubbed his hand over his face, and stood up heavily, swaying on the spot for a moment while the grey spots in his vision cleared. “You should leave the posters,” he said quietly, a devilish smirk growing on his face, and offered Sirius his hand. “Something for us to remember you by.”
Sirius looked up at him with an eyebrow raised skeptically. He took Regulus' hand and got to his feet, somewhat more clumsily than he would probably admit. “Mom would tear them down the second I was out of earshot, you know.”
“And that, my dear brother, is why we have this.” He pulled a tube out of his pocket, slapping it into his brother’s hand and patting him on the shoulder as he left the room. Plausible deniability and all that, wouldn't want to have any reason he could be implicated in this particular transgression.
Sirius looked down at the tube of superglue, a grin spreading across his face. “Regulus, you mad genius.”
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The rest of that morning went about as expected- Sirius broke a bunch of irreplaceable teacups and their respective irreplaceable saucers, Walpurga screamed and raged, Orion stayed in his office, and Regulus tried to hide his smile. Not only would Sirius get the fuck out of this town with his best friend, it also looked like he had a good chance of getting to stay in California. Their mother was typically about five minutes away from disowning Sirius at all times, and right now she was even worse than normal. Maybe this stupid plan actually had some merit to it after all. Sure, life would suck for the next couple days at least, but Sirius had a chance at freedom, and maybe with her rebellious disgrace of an eldest son out of the picture, Walpurga would chill out just a little.
Walpurga did not chill out a little. She spent the next four hours calling everyone she knew, and screaming at anyone who would listen about how Sirius was out of the will, he was never welcome in this town again, and he was a horrible little son of a bitch. Privately, Regulus agreed with the last point, but he wasn’t about to say anything. After all, he was basically just given confirmation that he was the sole heir of a fucking enormous fortune, and his mother was super old. Walpurga had just turned 70, the main reason why Sirius and Regulus had been carried by a surrogate.
The other reason was that Walpurga was a spiteful old hag who wasn’t capable of love and didn’t have a nurturing bone in her body. What a shock.
Anyways, Regulus’ lovely mother was pissed. That afternoon, after her phone battery died and she threw it against the wall, she stormed into Sirius’ room, fully intent on destroying everything she could get her hands on. She started from the top, and worked her way down, smashing the fancy-ass chandelier he always hated, pulling all his glow-in-the-dark stars off the ceiling, and tearing up the drapes he tie-dyed rainbow after two weeks of crisp, blinding white.
None of this was particularly surprising to Regulus, but it was still awful to deal with. By the time she got to the posters and realized they weren't going anywhere, she was literally purple with rage, and Reg was tucked into the back of the closet in one of the spare rooms, curled up with his headphones in and music blasting.
He could say he was okay with this, that he was doing fine now that Sirius was gone and he was on his own with his parents, but that would be a fucking lie, and honestly? Regulus was getting tired of lying. What did it even matter, if he was going to die alone and forgotten? Nobody keeps count of the unmarked graves of heretics, and nobody calculates the morality of a beast.
Jesus Christ. He was listening to way too much emo shit. What the fuck kind of thought was that? The morality of a beast? Who talked like that?
Oh, right. Nobody. Nobody talked like that.
God. Why did this have to be so hard? Sirius hadn't been gone a day yet, and he was losing his mind. He should, he could just say fuck it. Fuck the inheritance, fuck the family business, fuck this racist bullshit and all the money it came with. He could do this himself, he could handle life without help. Fuck Sirius for saying he never stood up for himself. He could stand up for himself.
Regulus stood up suddenly, an unsettling smile growing on his face. He slipped out of the guest room, speed walking to his own, a stupid idea growing in his mind. He checked that Walpurga was preoccupied with her own personal demolition spree and stepped past Sirius' closed door, mostly ignoring the screaming coming from inside. He tore through his dresser, looking for-
There it was. His secret stash of black nail polish and eyeliner. He had bought it months ago, but had never used it, terrified of what his mother would do and/or say. What better time to grow a pair than now, when his whole life was falling apart?
He giggled crazily, spinning around until he had to grab the bedpost to keep himself from falling over. This was a truly terrible idea, and he was going to get in so much trouble.
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Suffice it to say, he had wildly underestimated how much trouble he would get in.
Walking into school the next day, with a missing brother and a black eye, plus a couple dozen more bruises hidden under his clothes, he felt like the dumbest fucking idiot in the world.
But hey, at least he knew now that he looked really, really good in eyeliner. That might come in handy when Walpurga finally died, right after the pigs froze over, or whatever the saying was. Who cares.
Anyways, remember when I told you earlier he had expressed himself twice? Yeah, that was the first time. Just you wait until you find out how much more fucked up the second time was.