Prompt: Forced smile; wilted rose

Character(s): Sirius and Regulus

I hope you know I'd take a bullet,
Stand out on the frontline.
Oh, life is short, don't you know it?
But everybody needs a partner in crime.

Brother by Brett Eldrege

Sirius can actually recall how he felt when he first heard the news – the news that he was going to be an older brother. It wasn't joy, because there is no joy in being told that we have a spare now, so you need to be better than you are. It's just pressure being added to his shoulders, filling his veins, gravity tugging down on him. No, Sirius isn't happy when he learns that he will be an older brother. He plans to hate and hate and hate his younger brother.

When Regulus is born, Sirius falls in love. How can he not? His brother, crying and pink and not stopping his screams, falls quiet in his arms and smiles. Sirius promises in that moment to look after Regulus, to protect him, and to always, always love him.

Yesterday we were brothers,
Oh, now we're enemies!

Brother by Riles

Sirius leaves with the door crashing after him. He leaves with nothing but a wand. He leaves with pain protesting his every movement. He leaves behind a family torn and twisted and corrupted and the symbol of everything he hates. He leaves behind a permanently disappointed mother, an angry and uncaring father, and a brother who has cursed him with every breath he's ever taken.

Sirius lost his brother early, to his parents and their beliefs. He tried. Merlin damn it; he tried! He failed, but he tried – and that's important. In the end, though, it doesn't matter. Sirius may have lost his blood family, but he's found another family. He found friends who stick with him, brothers in all but name. His disaster of a childhood doesn't matter, nor does the people he's left behind. All that matters is this – there is a fight going on, and Sirius has blood pounding in his veins that urge him to defend and protect and fight for what is right.

Sirius once protected the wrong party. He isn't going to make that mistake again.

I'm sorry I missed your call,
I wasn't there for you at all.
And know I've thought it through,
Maybe if I answered you
That you would still be here all along.

Brother by Falling in Reverse

The day Sirius leaves dawns with a bright sun and surprisingly warm. The day Sirius leaves Regulus fixes a smile to his face. It feels forced, feels fake, feels like almost every smile he's ever given. Regulus longs to run after Sirius, to convince him to come back, but Sirius has never listened to Regulus. If he did once, then Regulus has forgotten such a time.

The day Sirius leaves will be something permanent in Regulus' memory. It will be one of his last thoughts, but it will be the only one that matters. Regulus will drown, screaming and struggling and not going silently because despite everything he doesn't want to die, but he will drown regardless. Regulus will think that I did this for you and that I did this in spite of you and that I did this and yet you left. Regulus will never think that Sirius left him, because Regulus had always refused to leave. He was proud, he had power dancing at his fingertips, he had cultivated a position for himself and had made himself a small shadow that lengthened as the day grew older.

Regulus died and that's a tragedy, but what is tragic that after Sirius left, Regulus grew – grew weak, grew fragile, grew dangerous, grew cutting, grew cold. He grew into something he swore not to be. When he finally realised, when his last friend – last member of his family – was left for dead, he decided to do something else.

A wilted rose may be dying and may be fading, but it can still have thorns.

I'm sorry, did you ask for angst and fluff?

Also, yes, I googled songs to find this - I knew some of them, though.