Prompt - "It doesn't matter anymore" and "How much did you drink?" - Sirius and Regulus
Regulus nibbled silently at the corner of his scone, his eyes fixed downward at his plate. The air surrounding the breakfast table of the Black family dining room on this midsummer day was thick and heavy with tension and the younger son of the family was eager to finish his meagre breakfast (he rarely had much of an appetite first thing in the morning) and make his excuses from the table at which he was seated, alone with his father.
His mother rarely joined them for breakfast, preferring instead to indulge in the privilege afforded to married women of status to take breakfast in bed. It was just as well, for although the tense silence between Orion and Regulus was difficult for the boy to endure, it was not nearly as hard as having to endure the simmering, frustrated anger of his mother if she'd been here to bear witness to his elder brother's notable, unauthorised absence from the breakfast table.
In the few moments that Regulus would lift his eyes from his downward gaze, it would be to glance across at the empty chair opposite him in which Sirius was meant to be sat. Its emptiness rang loud throughout the room, almost as loud as if Sirius were indeed here to fill it.
The younger Black brother's grey eyes flickered eastward to examine his father, who was sat, as he was every morning in Regulus's memory since he was first permitted to take breakfast outside of the nursery, at the head of the table, with the freshly-delivered morning's edition of the Daily Prophet levitating beside his chair, his gaze fixated intently on the page. He rarely paid much heed to either of his sons during breakfast, perhaps enquiring as to how they'd slept in a blunt voice that offered no suggestion that he intended to turn this courtesy into a conversation before returning his attention to the daily evaluation of the British Galleon's value against it's French counterpart.
Not being one with a natural desire for friendly chit-chat first thing in the morning with most people as a rule, let alone with his father, Regulus was quite content to allow the only noise to pass between the two of them to be the occasional clang of teaspoons on china or of knives sawing through freshly-baked bread loaves. He was only too aware, however, of how Sirius, by comparison, utterly detested silence. He had been banished from the breakfast table only last week for attempting to liven up what he saw as the daily morning endurance by loudly commenting on the previous day's Quidditch scores, which he'd craned his neck ungracefully across the table to read on the back page of Orion's newspaper, ruining his father's ability to concentrate on the day's financial news.
Regulus's eyes found themselves craning upwards to glance at his brother's empty chair again.
He knew why it was empty today. It was no doubt because of the blazing row that had unfolded within Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place the previous evening, the topic of which was still the topic of the family's ancestral portraits this morning - Regulus had heard the disapproving tuts of the his predecessors as he'd ventured out of his room, passing by the bedroom door of his brother which stayed defiantly and firmly shut.
In Regulus's mind, their mother's decision to forbid Sirius a previously-approved weekend visit to the Potter household was entirely justified. After all, if Sirius was so desperate to visit the boy he'd rather spend his summer shut up in his room writing letters to than gracing his own blood brother with so much as a passing greeting, then why did he see fit to disobey their mother's request for him to be polite to the visiting husband of their newlywed cousin, Narcissa?
Regulus's own cheeks still burned with embarrassment as he recalled the twisted look of indignant anger on Lucius Malfoy's face throughout afternoon tea as Sirius had made quip after quip about his serpent-embezzled robes and "locks that would send a princess green with envy" until Walburga had banished him to the confines of his room in disgrace for the remainder of the visit.
The blazing row that had erupted mere seconds before the Malfoys had left and Walburga had marched up to her elder son's bedroom had seemed to shake the walls of the house and had left Regulus wishing he were old enough to be able to cast a much-desired silencing charm around his own bedroom.
And now Sirius had failed to appear for breakfast. No doubt hiding in his room in a sulk.
Regulus let out a barely-audible sigh. His brother was too stubborn and hard-headed to see (or care) about how much worse he would make things for himself but hiding away in self-enforced seclusion.
For the sake of peace in the house, he needed to be told as much.
Summoning courage he kept in meagre stores for emergencies, once he'd finished his breakfast and parted ways from his father with the meek utterance of "Good day, Father" he offered every morning (and returned with an even more silent nod from Orion), Regulus ascended the stairs of Grimmauld Place and turned, not to his own bedroom on the left of the landing, but to Sirius's door on the right. He rasped his knuckles on the heavy wood, bracing himself for the sharp bark of "Piss off!" that anyone who dared disturb Sirius on a bad day was liable to relieve.
But not such remark came. Regulus was met only by silence. He knocked again, harder this time, and was finally met by a peculiar, weak-sounding moan from behind the door.
"Sirius?" Regulus called tentatively. "Can I come in?"
Another moan, as weak as the one before, neither confirming nor denying Regulus's permission to enter. But from the sound of it, Sirius might well not be simply sulking after the row with his mother - he may instead be ill and require assistance.
Regulus pushed open his brother's bedroom door to be met with darkness; Sirius's heavy window curtains were pulled shut, a sliver of bright, August sunshine pouring through the chink in the fabric. Regulus forced himself not to wrinkle his nose at the distasteful Muggle posters his brother had plastered all over his bedroom walls, in a latest effort to shock their parents. Quite what the desired reaction Sirius was aiming for was, Regulus had yet to figure out and Sirius had yet to explain to him.
The sixteen-year-old boy himself was laying sprawled out across his bed, the thin summer covers tangled about his limbs, evidence of tossing and turning. He lay face down, his head half-buried in a pillow, motionless.
"Sirius?" Regulus called softly as he made his way across the untidy room to his brother's bedside. "Sirius, what's wrong? Are you ill?"
The words his elder brother uttered in reply were slurred, muffled heavily by the fabric of the pillow.
"That's one word for it"
A sudden, unpleasantly strong whiff invaded Regulus's nostrils. It was the smell he recognised from several months ago, at school, when a group of irksome sixth year Slytherins had managed to somehow wrangle a bottle of liquor back from a Hogsmeade trip and into the Common Room. It was the smell of cheap whiskey.
"You're drunk" said Regulus, his voice heavy with evident disapproval.
"Not drunk, hungover" Sirius mumbled, turning his head sideways towards his brother but not able, or willing, to lift his gaze to look the younger boy in the eye. "Big difference, Reg"
"I'm sure"
His younger brother's prim, disapproving tone was not missed by the elder.
Regulus sighed in frustration at the sight of his elder brother in such a state. He was dressed abominably, in a thin, Muggle t-shirt and denim jeans that their mother had threaten to burn if she ever saw again, he reeked of stale drink and there were dark circles of sleep deprivation under his eyes, marring the handsome face that Regulus had found himself feeling a slight burn of jealously towards several times.
"How did you even get out of here?" Regulus found himself asking.
Sirius silently raised a clumsy arm to point across the room at his window. Regulus peered through the fabric which fluttered in the slight breeze to reveal the swung-open glass. A rope of bed sheets was knotted around the middle of the window frame. Regulus couldn't help but cringe to himself at the image of his brother abseiling down the side of the house like a common Muggle thief in the night. But really, what else was he to do? Their father's intricate protection spells would detect even the slightest flutter of magic aiding his escape from the home he so often referred to as a prison fortress.
Judging by the state of him now, Regulus was surprised Sirius had managed to haul himself back up through the window at the end of his escapade.
"How much did you drink?" asked Regulus, as if it mattered how much alcohol it took for his brother to land himself in such a state.
Sirius shrugged.
"Dunno. A few" he muttered.
"More than a few, by the looks of it" Regulus replied, the haughty disapproval of his tone reminding himself, somewhat alarmingly, of their father.
"Mother is only going to be even more angry with you if she sees you like this" he said, the worried tone of a concerned younger brother returning to him.
Sirius sighed. His already downcast eyes seemed to droop even further.
"It doesn't matter anymore" he said.
Regulus was taken aback by the distinct air of defeat in his normally so bold and defiant elder brother. He looked so... broken. So sad.
It wasn't right.
Regulus turned away to leave the room.
"I'll- get you a glass of water" he said, softly. "And don't worry about Mother. I'll tell her you're sleeping off a- a stomach bug or something"
As Regulus reached out to open the door, he resigned himself to the fact that his brother had either fallen asleep or didn't see fit to grace him with a reply.
"Reg"
At the sound of Sirius's weak call from the bed across the room, Regulus paused with his hand on the door handle and turned to face his elder brother.
"Thanks" said Sirius, even managing an attempt at half a smile.
Regulus returned the gesture with offering the other half of the smile back at him.
"You're welcome" he replied before leaving his brother's bedroom to fetch the promised water.