Best read following Chapter 6 of Seirios Aster's Some Nights, "Holes in My Apologies".

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Only 18

"Knock the world right off its feet and straight onto its head. The book of love will long be laughing after you are dead." ~Red Hot Chilli Peppers

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There was a long silence after he'd said his brother's name, as if all of the air had been sucked out of the space between them, and time was frozen as long as neither of them said or did anything. However, he saw what was coming - he knew that look on his younger sibling's face as Regulus bit his lip and did an abrupt about-face.

Sirius ...? You going somewhere?

Nope. No he was not going anywhere, and there was no way in hell he was allowing this vivid hallucination to get away from him. No way he was going to permit his dead brother knock the entire world sideways on Sirius and then just leave as if nothing had happened.

The dark haired twenty-one year old had meant to stop his brother from escaping; which of course to him meant body checking the smaller boy into the wall and holding him there until he stopped moving and trying to escape. The movement was of course going to have to be a bit rough, fast, and hard to be sure that Reggie wasn't going to do something so foolish as very suddenly try to aparate or something, which would have again been just his luck. That is, if Regulus was even there. And even though Sirius was basically stone sober, you can't really blame him that he was having a hard time believing that the nineteen year old was standing in front of him. Or more accurately, running away from him.

Or, even more accurately than that, tripping over his ridiculously clumsy feet and landing on the floor so that Sirius Orion Black extremely ungracefully ended up tripping over him and landing directly on top of him instead. Staring down at the gray eyed teenager in a daze, still disbelieving what he was seeing, Sirius could smell the alcohol on his brother's breath. How ironic; Regulus was plastered and for once he only had a little in him ... For a few moments, their quick, short breaths mingled because of how closer their faces were - Reg had turned when he fell, and landed on his back, so he was facing Sirius when the larger male had fallen on him.

"Get off! You weigh a ton!" Blinking a few times, still wholly disoriented, Sirius hardly moved when his brother shoved at him slightly. It felt like the world should be spinning in front of him, but everything had a strange sort of clarity about it that almost made it more surreal than if he had contracted vertigo. Once he had registered what his younger brother had said, however, he did manage to push himself up off of the floor so that he wasn't completely squashing him, which seemed like the favorable option in his opinion, at least for Reg.

"You're… You're really here. You're alive," he managed to get out as he continued trying to stare a hole into Regulus' head without realizing. He honestly couldn't believe his eyes - true, on some level he had been holding out for Regulus to be alive, but at the same time ... He had an idea of the odds; he knew he sounded completely loony. So he hadn't actually really thought ... Or had he? It was hard to say now, and it didn't really mater anyway ...

But what did matter, he realized suddenly, was that they were both standing out in the middle of a very public space as if they were Prongs caught staring at a search light. And, while it might at least prove Sirius' sanity if someone did happen across the two of them, he thought perhaps it would be prudent if they took this inside, so as not to alert anyone of his apparently still living brother. That thought in mind, he bodily moved Regulus, nearly picking him up to get him into the apartment - if the brunet was drunk, then he wasn't going to have that delightful little thing known as common sense. That was really the only reason Sirius was even considering that this might all be real; liquid courage tended to have the unfortunate side effect of causing people to do really stupid things. And if Regulus had somehow purposely feigned his death and was in hiding, then showing himself to Sirius was probably quite literally the stupidest thing he could possibly have done...

Thankfully, Regulus didn't seem to struggle; in fact he seemed to be having a hard time focusing on anything at all ... Absently Sirius wondered how much his little brother had been drinking that evening for him to have decided to pull this little stunt, and then he decided he'd rather not know as he gently forced Regulus to sit down at the kitchen table, closing the apartment door behind them and setting about making a cup of tea. His brother enjoyed the stuff far more than he did, and a strong cup might help him clear his head a bit. Sirius wanted to avoid using magic if possible, afraid that it might jog his brother's memory that he could easily aparate out of the apartment - and just as easily splinch himself due to his inebriated state.

"Sirius?" the teenager's voice caught the Eldest and Moste Self Destructive Black's attention as he was flicking on the burner underneath the tea kettle. Blue eyes flicked over to his brother, who appeared to be looking around the room, not that Regulus had anything better to do. "What in the fuck - were you going to fucking try kill yourself again?"

Another disoriented blink because what!? Looking around the living room quickly, a visual sweep brought to the forefront of his attention what his brother must have been talking about. Reg knew about his allergy to Veritaserum, and that Bubble Juice was sitting on the coffee table, plain as day. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together that the smaller brunet thought Sirius was planning on tossing back a shot of brandy with a truth potion chaser.

"Regulus, it's not—" Sirius didn't even get the words out edgewise, and he wasn't entirely surprised either. The last sentence had been verging on angry. Upon further introspection of the sober variety it would have been rather obvious that there was no way that was actually a drink he was deadly allergic to; it was sitting out next to a glass of water and a bottle of brandy, next to a photo album. Clearly Sirius had been sitting there imbibing all of these things alternately, not planning his own imminent and premature demise ... But, as Regulus was not exactly the poster child for sobriety at the moment, he hadn't come to that conclusion yet - he had come to the easier, more obvious, less logical one instead.

"No. No, I came here for a damned reason, okay? You need to fucking stop with this bullshit, Sirius!" To be fair, he was a little taken aback by the sudden stern tone his brother was taking with him. Not only was it surreal that he was sitting in the same room with someone that he had been quite certain a few months ago was no longer among the living, but now to be getting a speech that mirrored an alcohol intervention when the delivering party was in fact inebriated ... It was almost comical in it's bizarre-ity. "You have a job and friends and people who fucking care about you! If I'd known you were in this fucking state, I would have made more of an effort to say something, but you have got to be kidding me!"

"Reggie, calm down; I'm not trying to commit suici-" he tried to interject in the middle, trying to distract his brother, but there was nothing doing. Apparently the teen was reasonably impassioned about his current topic of thought, and he wasn't going to be dissuaded. Even if it was by a statement that would at the very least put his mind slightly at ease; he hadn't been trying to off himself - he had been trying to quench his thirst with something that wasn't alcohol for Merlin's sake. This was what he got for trying to be sober for a day ...

"I don't really fucking care why you think this is such a damned okay thing to do, but I will not let you ruin your goddamned life because you think what happened to me is your fault. It's not!" In fact, his brother was so impassioned he stood as he said this - though he weaved where he stood in a rather concerning fashion ... So as he continued ranting at the older brunet, Sirius went over to where he was stationed, staying within arm's reach of the boy in case Regulus fell over so that Sirius could catch him if need be. "I tried to fucking explain this to you before, but you didn't fucking listen! I don't even know why I thought it would work this time, but there you go! It's not your goddamn fault I joined the Death Eaters, it's not your goddamned fault that I decided to fucking spy on them, and it's not your fucking fault that I almost got myself killed! There is no room left for you to have contributed, Sirius. I am an adult, and I was an adult when I made those decisions, and I really need you to accept that, because if you don't, then what's wrong with you is on me as well, and I don't need more shit to make me feel guilty!"

Honestly ... Sirius had no idea what to say. He sort of just stood there like some sort of lethargic fish, opening his mouth once or twice to say something ... but no words came - because, honestly, what was he supposed to say to any of that?

Twweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

The scream of the tea kettle was the first thing to end the silence, and he barely managed to bite back a curse as he jumped half a foot into the air. Sirius had completely forgotten about it he was so caught up in trying to process everything that had just been shouted at him ... Quickly turning the burner off, he strode quickly into the living room; clearly the drink was causing more harm than good, so without a word he tossed it into the sink to be rid of it, hoping that that would at least slightly appease Regulus, who seemed to be calming of his own accord, but it didn't hurt.

Turning back to the hot water, he pulled a pair of mugs out of the cupboard, busying his hands with brewing the tea for the two of them while he tried to figure out what to say. Honestly most of what bothered him was the fact that Regulus so readily accepted the idea that he wanted to snuff it ... And the fact that his brother just insisted that he was an adult. An adult? Regulus was still a teenager! He wasn't an adult when he'd made those decisions; he was foolish, snot-nosed kid that had gotten in over his head and wanted to do something resembling the right thing. So he'd devised a hair-brained scheme, apparently, to try and help out the other side of the war from the Death Eater's ranks, which was completely ludicrous, not to mention suicidal in itself!

... But he couldn't say any of that. He knew he couldn't, so instead he just muttered, "sit down before you fall over," while pushing a mug in his brother's direction so he would have more of a reason to do what Sirius said. Thankfully he did, deflating a bit from his anger-fueled, self-inflated speech and sitting down in the chair Sirius had originally gotten him situated in. Taking the mug Sirius had given him, it was like he thought it was the only thing keeping him anchored to the world, or so it seemed by the way he was holding onto it. How backwards all of this was; Sirius was the sober one trying to calm down an overzealous lush in his midst ... The world truly had been knocked off of its feet and straight onto its head ...

"Sorry," Regulus murmured after a few moments of staring at the steaming liquid in front of him. He had very suddenly and quickly calmed down; most likely another side effect of the alcohol - mood swings. "I know you wouldn't…"

"It's all right, Reggie." Sirius cut him off with a guarded tone before he could finish the statement, whatever the younger male had intended for it to be. At the moment his brother was volatile, and he wasn't entirely sure what he could say or what he should avoid saying to keep from setting him off like that again. The last thing either of them needed was for him to receive a concussion because he was yelling and jumping around like a chocolate frog. He wanted to ask ... Oh about eight million and ten things at the moment, all pertaining to everything his brother had just spouted at him, but ... Instead he asked carefully, "are you all right?"

It had seemed like a safe, easy thing to ask that probably wouldn't garner too much of an emotional response ... Except that Regulus seemed to take the question very literally as before Sirius' very eyes he stared to completely break down, tears streaming down his face as he started incoherently saying ... Something; honestly the older and currently (sadly) more outwardly stable male had no idea what Regulus was saying through his tears. He let it go on for a few moments, trying to decide if it was better for Reg's mental health in the long run if he allowed the teen to get it all out ... But eventually, he leaned towards him slightly, putting a hand on his brother's back in what he hoped was a soothing gesture and wouldn't just make things worse.

"It's all right, Reggie. You've nothing to be sorry for." That was one thing he had constantly told his brother while they were growing up, and especially in the later years before he had graduated Hogwarts and even when he'd seen the boy afterwards. Regulus was always trying to apologize for everything, even if it wasn't his fault or there was nothing he could have done about whatever was going wrong. Of course his brother tried to argue with the statement, again his speech was too slurred or incoherent for Sirius to really make out what the argument was ... But it didn't matter; he just needed to assure him that he wasn't angry with Regulus, and that he didn't think his brother had done anything wrong. "I know you would have told me you were okay if you could have."

"Sirius, that's not—I didn't. I didn't try. I should've, but I didn't. I thought you were okay. I thought—" Apparently that reassurance had been the wrong choice, because Regulus only resumed his mini-breakdown with gusto. This was definitely all a side effect of the drinking; all of these quick mood changes, not to mention the nearly incomprehensible speech. Eventually he did manage to almost hiccup out, "I'm—I'm not worth it," which made the blue eyed male frown deeply, brow furrowing. Somewhere along the line Regulus had decided that he was a waste of space as a human being; Sirius wasn't sure when he had decided this, but it was a thought process that had somehow gotten ingrained into his brain, so now it was always the first thought the idiot had, no matter what anyone said or did to try and dissuade him of the 'fact'.

Shaking his head to himself, he continued to gently rub his brother's back while Regulus sobbed into his slowly cooling tea. Reg's face was a total wreck, as tended to happen when one was having a rather unattractive cry, but then, he had seen this side of his brother before. They were family after all; with family you didn't need to put on a good face, even if most of the time you wanted to - who else could you turn to, if not your family?

True, he hadn't really ascribed to that philosophy over the past few years ... Quietly, he let out a breath, and felt a pang of guilt when, at the idea of 'family', his first thought was James, Lily, Peter, Remus, James' parents ... Blue eyes looked down at the table as his brother continued to slur words out past his tears, and a breath escaped him. Leave it to his friends to remind him that he always had a family, even when he had tried to write off most of his own - and usually succeed.

Fat lot of good that had done Regulus though; his running away from his own problems had only dropped them straight into his little brother's lap ... And now, this was the fall out. The teenager wasn't dead, miraculously, but he was this. And whatever this was, it wasn't healthy, well adjusted, or even just well; that much was clear.

"You're okay, Reggie; it's all right. You're safe," Sirius murmured softly, though he wasn't sure he believed the lie even as it passed his lips. Putting a hand on the smaller brunet's shoulder, he squeezed it gently, managing what he hoped resembled a smile in Reg's direction as he did so. Regulus glanced up from where he was still crying over his otherwise untouched mug of tea that was no longer steaming, face sort of odious as it was covered in half dried tears and snot from the drunken crying fest ...

"It's all my fault…" the words were notably quieter than most everything else his brother had been whinging about, and for a moment they just sat there, looking at each other. Sirius shook his head slightly to disagree, but otherwise he didn't say anything - there weren't really words for something that it was likely his brother already knew he was going to assert. At this point, Reg had let go of his mug, and instead started to sit up slightly. Since he hadn't gotten any of the tea into his system, and sitting for a while hadn't seemed to have done much to help with his inebriation, more conclusive methods might need to be taken ...

Just as Sirius was deciding that perhaps magic, rather than caffeine, was the way to go for this particular encounter to stimulate sobriety, the last straw was apparently tossed onto the camel's back. As he let go of his brother's shoulder, about to give a directive along the lines of 'stay put for a second', he saw the teenager's eyes half roll back into his skull before his eyelids closed, and his body completely slumped in his seat.

The older of the two occupants in the room cursed sharply when his brother's body went slack, and he dove to catch Regulus' prone form before it slid out of the chair he was in and onto the floor. Apparently he hadn't been quite quick enough to decide on using the sobering charm - Reg had conked out before Sirius could magically force the booze to process through his system and get any real questions answered with any semblance of coherency. Sighing extremely heavily, he looked down at his brother's lax, sleeping face and shook his head. He was here; he was really here...

And Sirius sure as hell wasn't letting him go again. Not at all if he could help it, and certainly not without at least some answers. So, the question was, what precisely was he to do? First thing was obviously first - leaving in him in the kitchen wasn't an option, so instead he carefully adjusted his grip, shifting so that Regulus was instead draped over his back. It seemed like the easiest way to carry him across the apartment, which proved an easy task; so easy in fact that he frowned slightly - was Regulus eating properly? Or at all for that matter? He was so strangely light ...

Nothing Sirius could do about that now, so he instead set to getting his brother to the bedroom. Why, you ask, was he taking Reg to the bed instead of the couch? Well, first of all the bed was a mite bit more comfy than the couch, but secondly, an idea occurred to him. If Regulus really was here, and it was such a paradigm shift that it was becoming increasingly likely that he was real, then he was extremely likely to try and escape in the wee hours of the morning once he slept off some of whatever alcohol he had imbibed in excess that evening. Sirius was not about to have that, so the ingenious idea occurred to him that if they were literally in the same bed, with the older brunet's current state of sobriety, there was no possibly way his clumsy younger brother would be able to escape without waking Sirius first.

Backing up to the edge of the bed and bending his knees, he carefully laid Regulus down on the blankets and removed the teenager's shoes before pulling him up and into a more comfortable position on the mattress. Pausing after he'd looked at Reg for a moment, he wandered into the bathroom, still looking into the bedroom all the while to be sure that he could still see Regulus and this wasn't somehow a clever plot to get Sirius out of the room so he could aparate. Returning a moment later with a warm wash cloth, he set to cleaning off the teenager's face carefully before drying it with a hand towel - no need to Scourgify it or anything, but there was no need to leave it particularly gross either.

After another moment's thought, Sirius also extracted his brother's wand from the pocket of his trousers and purposely put it across the room on a dresser and out of sight behind a box. Nodding to himself once he'd accomplished this, sure that at the very least that would delay his brother further if he managed to get out of the bed without alerting Sirius, the older brunet reached around the door jam into the living room and groped around for a moment before finding the light switch and flicking it off. He did the same for the bedroom light before climbing into the bed himself. as there was plenty of room - and even if there wasn't he would have, because it was the best way to ensure that he would detect any and all movement from the younger Black. Tucking himself up against Regulus, he pulled the blankets over both of them with an air of finality before putting his arms around his brother and veritably holding onto him. If Regulus so much as breathed differently, Sirius was bound to know about it.

There. Now there was no way Regulus was going to escape without giving the older Black some sort of answers that hopefully wouldn't end in another incoherent sobbing mess of a story. Letting out a breath that might have been a sigh, he laid his head down partially on Regulus' shoulder, partially on one of his pillows, and closed his eyes.

"Just shut up and sleep, Pads," he murmured to himself as he adjusted his position slightly so that his brother's hair wasn't tickling his face right beneath his nose. Surprisingly, Sirius fell asleep almost immediately, in a way he had been unable to in the time that had passed since Regulus' funeral.

It was almost as if his brother's presence was soothing to him, and did a far quicker job than fermented fruit and grains at chasing away the nightmares.

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The End ..?

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