Written for the Couples Remix. Cain & Abel: Sirius & Regulus.
Warnings: Incest, reference to child abuse, violence, character death, explicit dub-con sex, dark, breath play, swearing.
Word Count: 1,700 (approx)
Beta: emansil_08
Sirius was the good brother. He knew this. He was in Gryffindor, the Order of the Phoenix, the Marauders, he was on the same side as Dumbledore and the Light. Regulus was the bad brother. He was a Slytherin, a Death Eater, a follower of Lord Voldemort, a user of Dark Magic. Sirius had braved his family, had been disowned, had made a stand against all that was wrong. He knew that he was the one who was good.
Regulus staggered from the cave, half dead from the poison and the inferi, knowing that it wouldn't take long before he was all dead. He was sure that he had done the right thing, though. Kreacher was safe and he could be trusted to destroy the locket. Regulus needed a safe refuge now. His parents wouldn't understand and the people he had once considered to be friends would turn him straight over to their leader, where he would be punished as a traitor. There was only one person he could turn to, only one place he could go.
He was a wheezing, sickly bag of terror in a tattered black robe, but Sirius considered slamming the front door shut again and pretending he hadn't seen his brother.
"Why are you here?"
"I've left them." Regulus gave a long, rattling gasp. "Nowhere else to go." He breathed deeply for a few moments, then added. "I need Order protection."
"Why would we protect scum like you?"
"He'll kill me. Enemy of my enemy."
"You never protected me from father," Sirius sneered.
To his surprise, Regulus whispered back, "Sorry."
Sirius sighed with resignation. Sometimes doing the right thing was a pain in the arse. He crouched down to do some healing spells. Mending the bruises and scratches was easy, but there was something deeply wrong with Regulus and Sirius realised that it would take time to rectify that. He settled him on his couch with a sleeping potion.
He didn't like having his home contaminated with his family. This was the safe place he had run to when they'd kicked him out. He cast some spells, heated some milk, resentfully dunking bread in it which he couldn't really afford to be giving away, then woke his brother again and fed him.
"I did something good," Regulus said. He smiled strangely.
Sirius didn't like this. He was the good brother, this wasn't right. He refused to ask Regulus what he'd done.
"I'll only tell Dumbledore; he will be pleased with me," Regulus answered, as though the question had been asked.
This was all wrong. Regulus was meant to be following the path of evil. If anyone was going to do something which would please Dumbledore, then that someone should be Sirius. A foul flame of jealousy burned up inside him. He looked away and tried to calm down. When he looked back, deep grey eyes like his own were staring back at him.
"What do you want now?" Sirius snapped.
"I just wondered ..." Regulus looked down at his own hands. "I never confronted Father, but at least, when you were scared, you came and ... I'm scared, Sirius. I'm very scared now."
"What are you scared of?" Sirius spat angrily, trying to veer the conversation onto a different track.
"Oh, I don't know," Regulus feigned nonchalance with a quiver to his voice, "the most powerful Dark Wizard in history wants me dead. That's all." He stared at his brother and, while Sirius wanted to leap up and run far away, the fire of that gaze pinned him. "Just hug me. Hole me. Please." Sirius didn't move. He should have moved, maybe that way he could have prevented his brother from continuing. "When Father beat you, you used to come into my bedroom, into my bed, and I didn't mind because it made you feel better."
No! Sirius was the good one. He hadn't raped a child just to offload his own humiliated, impotent fury. He couldn't have taken his brother's innocence, passed on his pain, terrified him, molested, abused ... And yet he knew that he had.
"I want to feel better," Regulus said in a small voice.
"I'll make you better. I've got more potions." Sirius finally found the strength to get up off the couch.
"That's great," Regulus mumbled.
Sirius didn't look back at him as he assembled the little bottles and heated the pewter cauldron. He had to meet with some of the other Order members later today. He didn't want to leave a Death Eater in his house while he did so, but he couldn't risk letting the Good people find out that his shameful family was in contact with him again. He knew he wouldn't ask for Order protection for his brother. He had spent to long trying to make them forget that he was one of ithose/i notorious Blacks.
He tried to concentrate on mixing up the potions, on his plan to dump his brother by nightfall; he tried to ignore the images that rose again and again in his mind of a young boy being held down and buggered on twisted sheets. He felt sick, and what sickened him the most was that he felt aroused, too.
When he had finished the Muscle Knitting potion he turned back to the couch. It was empty.
His heart rose: maybe Regulus had run off again, maybe he didn't have to deal with him after all, maybe he'd been saved.
The front door was still shut and warded, so Sirius went looking round his home. He left the bedroom until last, because a fluttering panic had started to build in his belly. By the time he opened that door, he knew where his brother had gone.
Sure enough, there he was, under the grey blanket, watching the door with a mixture of fear and defiance.
"Get out of my bed!" Sirius tried to yell it but his breath was caught. It came out as a tremulous whisper.
His brother sat up and the bedding slipped down his body. His chest was bare. It was welted and bruised, but it was a man's chest now, broad and handsome and dark haired. A thickening trail of hair pointed down to the place where the blanket had come to rest. Sirius blamed Regulus for the fact that his mind had crept under there, to thinking about the treasure that was still hidden.
"Hug me. Make me forget, make me feel better." Sirius stayed on the threshold. "I've done something great and brave, something that will damage He Who Must Not Be Named more than you and your little Resistance ever could. Reward me!"
Sirius didn't want to believe him. He didn't want to be the second bravest, second greatest son. He wanted to please Dumbledore. He had made sacrifices, too. He couldn't have his brother making a sacrifice which the Order would value more than his. His blood heated and he saw red.
He didn't know what overtook him exactly. He was furious with Regulus for trying to take his friends away from him, and for laying out the temptation of his body after all these years, and for coming to him and tainting him again with the family he had freed himself of. At the same time, the old feelings rose in him. He hated his brother for taking their parents' love and approval, for not standing by Sirius, for escaping the beatings. He wanted to hurt him, to pound his rage into him. He desired him, too and he hated himself for that, and hated Regulus for it, too.
Regulus didn't resist this time. Now he was a man who could respond with caresses and kisses. Sirius still held him down. He gripped both of his brother's wrists, held his arms above his head with them. Regulus whispered lubricating and stretching charms. Even through his overwhelming passions Sirius knew that meant that he had been with other men and that fuelled his hate even more. And the hate heated the passion.
Sirius entered the tight, dark heat of his brother and he shoved in hard, stabbing, slamming, trying to hurt. Regulus gasped and thrust his hips back. This could not be happening. There was enough horror in Sirius' life, he did not need his family to come back into his life, reawakening the evil that was Black, the evil in him that was his blackness. He let go of Regulus' wrists. Immediately there were fingers on his nipples, nails digging into his skin.
As he thrust, Sirius took hold of dark hair identical to his own, pulling hard, wrenching his brother's head to one side. The little pervert moaned deeper; he was actually enjoying this. Sirius' hands fell lower, closed around that delicate neck. As he squeezed, Regulus closed his eyes and then he was climaxing, they were both climaxing and Sirius squeezed harder.
**********
Sirius was late for the meeting. Oddly, Moody didn't say anything, and Moody always said something. He looked at their faces: Remus, Peter, Fabian. They all looked at him with concern, or maybe it was pity.
Alastor Moody cleared his throat before saying: "We've had intelligence. About your brother, Regulus."
Sirius' gut twisted. He swallowed. He said nothing.
Remus stood up then, took the few steps that were between them and put a hand on Sirius' arm. "He's left the Death Eaters," he said. "He's disappeared, but ..."
"They'll get him," Peter added darkly.
Moody coughed again. They all looked to him, he was their section leader. He asked, "Don't suppose you'd have any idea where he might go?"
"Fuck's sake!" Sirius spat furiously. "What am I, my brother's keeper?"
Blood swam in his ears, pounding so hard that he couldn't hear the soft words his friends tried to calm him with. He thought about the dead body in his bed, the one he would have to dispose of that night. He didn't know who was good and who was bad any more. The only thing he knew for sure was that he wasn't good enough. There was no way he could be trusted to be the Potters' Secret Keeper.