Monochrome

Title: Monochrome
Author/Artist: literaryspell
Betas: rainien, Krystle Lynne, kazfeist
Pairing: Sirius/Regulus
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: sexual situations, drug use, incest
Word Count: 2600
Summary: Sirius is beginning to realise that he’ll never be able to save his brother.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Sirius said casually, stepping back to free the entrance despite his words.

“Do you mean existentially, or here at your flat? I tend to agree, either way,” Regulus drawled, striding past his brother in that imperious way of his.

Sirius could sense more than see the Dark magic around his brother. People said it wasn’t possible, that you can’t tell these things, but Sirius would always beg to differ. Maybe it was because he knew his brother, or maybe not. But Sirius knew like he knew his own name that Regulus had been Marked.

“You bloody idiot,” he spat, lunging for his brother’s sleeve.

“Fuck you, Sirius! What was I supposed to do?” Regulus was immediately defensive, but he still moved to the sideboard and poured them both a drink, his own rather more liberal than the one meant for Sirius.

“Say no? Run? Come to me, instead? Hell, if you wanted a tattoo, I have a fire poker with the Black crest on the handle. I could have shoved it right up your arse if you want to bend over and take it so badly.”

“You know what they do,” Regulus said, a tone that Sirius recognised from their youth slipping into his voice. Things had been simpler then; but wasn’t that always the case?

“They find out what you love,” he continued. “What’s important to you. And if you don’t do as they say, what you love is gone. Just like that. And Mother and Father told me that. I knew all along. But I still never thought that they would turn on their own son like that.”

“They didn’t turn on you, Regulus! They were probably their holding your fucking hand!”

“Not me, Sirius. You. I didn’t think they would let Him go after you to get me, but they volunteered your name. And I didn’t have a choice.”

Sirius’ anger deflated, but he still felt betrayed. Not by his parents; he’d come to expect that. But he never would have thought that Regulus would have been stupid enough to get as deep as he had in the first place. Long before the ultimatum came to pass, he should have run. And now there was no way out.

“I can’t help you,” he whispered, not a denial, but a regret.

“I’m not asking for your help, Sirius. Not now. Not again. I just wanted to be here, to see you, to make sure they hadn’t… gone back on their word.”

“And?” he said, spreading his arms wide, liquor sloshing over the side of the glass. “I’m alive, aren’t I? More than you, anyway.”

Regulus took his brother’s hand and led him over to the worn sofa. Once seated, he pulled his damnable pack of Muggle cigarettes from one pocket, and a small vial of green liquid from another.

“Ah, cigarettes,” Regulus quipped. “My last rebellion.” He took one out of the pack and popped the lid to the vial. After dipping the cigarette tip inside, he lifted the potion-soaked fag to his mouth, lighting it with his wand. The resultant green smoke was thick and smelled like the air after fireworks. Regulus’ pupils immediately dilated, the telltale Black grey only a circle around fathomless ebon.

Sirius waved away the drug when offered, causing his brother to shrug nonchalantly and take another drag.

“You know, it doesn’t matter anyway,” Regulus eventually said, waving his hand, eliciting a trail of Avada Kedavra smoke.

“What’s that?” Sirius asked cautiously, used to treading lightly around Regulus when he was high, though it hadn’t been long ago that he would have been easily persuaded to partake. Now it didn’t feel safe to let his guard down, and he hated that it had come to this.

“I’ll die for my cause and you for yours, and we’ll both end up in the same place. ‘Cause if you’re good enough for heaven, so the fuck am I, no matter what master I kneel to. And if you’re not, then I’m certainly not. Either way, we’ll be together.”

“I didn’t know you believed in that Muggle propaganda,” Sirius said, uncertain of what he, himself, believed, and wholly unwilling to consider it at that moment.

Regulus shrugged a lazy shoulder. “Everyone has to believe in something.”

“I wish you would have believed in me,” Sirius said sorrowfully, taking the cigarette and Banishing it. Regulus looked at his fingers as though it would reappear, and when it didn’t, he raised accusing eyes to Sirius.

But instead of berating him for getting rid of his poison of choice, Regular hissed, “You left me. How am I supposed to believe in someone who couldn’t stick around another bloody year? You don’t know half of what they did in that year, but I couldn’t leave. Leaving was no more an option than you returning. Gods, you’re so fucking selfish. I needed you!” he cried, fingers clenching on Sirius’ knee. “I needed you,” he repeated, voice no more than a whisper.

Sirius’ heart, though often steeled against such accusations, still broke a little whenever he heard them. And as he had before he’d even left his home, and every fucking time Regulus had come to him since, Sirius promised, “I’m here, now. I’m here.”

Regulus crawled into his lap, curling into him like a small child. Sirius hated that it came down to this, always this. Regulus didn’t know how to be normal; none of them did.

“Not like this,” Sirius whispered, but he pressed a kiss against Regulus’ temple and smoothed his straight black hair away. In many ways, looking at Regulus was like looking into his own past. Only a year younger but also decades older, Regulus could look at Sirius and know what he was going to look like in a year’s time. Sirius wondered how it would feel to know that there was another person just like you out there, and that you could disappear and it wouldn’t matter because you were only him a year before.

Sirius realised the smoke from Regulus’ drug had made him a little dizzy.

“Like this,” Regulus was saying, nuzzling Sirius’ neck and licking him softly, like a kitten. Regulus was always black and white, hard and soft.

“I didn’t want to leave you, you know,” Sirius said, knowing it was important that his brother know this.

“But you did,” Regulus said simply, pulling back to look into Sirius’ eyes. Sirius almost couldn’t handle it, this pretty debauchery, this angry lie of love.

“If I could do it again…” But Sirius didn’t continue because they both knew what he’d been about to say was a lie. Sirius would do the same thing over and over because even if he was the Gryffindor Black, the Black sheep, he was still a Black, and Blacks looked out for themselves first. Escaping had kept him sane, kept him alive. He’d sacrificed his brother and now it was too late.

Regulus pulled out another cigarette, shifting to reach into his pocket for the potion. He was now straddling Sirius’ lap, their groins aligned casually like it didn’t even matter that they were brothers or men or enemies. He dipped the fag and let it dangle on his lip, lighting it a moment later.

Sirius sighed and parted his lips, tacit permission for Regulus to put the smoke in his mouth. But Regulus didn’t; he wet the tip of his finger with the potion and traced Sirius’ lower lip with it. When Sirius inhaled, the fumes immediately cleared his mind, made his heart race a little, made colours brighter, though Regulus was still and always would be monochrome, pink lips only.

With the cigarette in his fingers, which he tangled in Sirius’ hair, Regulus leaned forward and harshly mashed their lips together. Sirius tried to tell himself it was the drugs, he didn’t want this, not Regulus, not his brother. But that didn’t explain all the other nights when the two of them had pretended to be afraid of the dark or the thunder or the man in their dining room being entertained by their sycophantic parents, and they’d crawled into one another’s bed, under the covers, always under, and curled around each other, snakes in the sheets with kisses and bites and confusion and pretty promises and prettier lies.

“Missed you, Sirius,” Regulus groaned, eyes black with the drug.

“Why’d you do it? Why’d you let them Mark you?” Sirius whispered, looking into his brother’s stoned features.

“’S good to be owned,” Regulus said.

“Could’ve owned you,” Sirius lamented, his mind slowing as his senses heightened. He remembered why he stopped doing this shit. Everything was fastslow, and Sirius couldn’t keep up.

“Forgive you.” Regulus kissed him again, missing a little thanks to his distorted perception.

Sirius pushed him back a moment to really look at him. Regulus had glassy eyes and a slightly silly smile, but he looked genuine. “Really?” Sirius asked, needing absolution, though he suspected it wasn’t really Regulus’ to give.

“Sure,” Regulus said easily, running his fingers through Sirius’ black hair, so like his own. “Too late now, anyway.”

“You could leave,” Sirius said, groaning when Regulus took off his own shirt and then Sirius’. He liked the mirror and he didn’t. There was a freckle, and he worshipped it. Differences were to be lauded. Similarities crushed. Isn’t that what he was always trying to do?

“Can’t leave ‘em, can never leave. Mother and Father…”

Sirius watched as Regulus unbuckled both of their belts and then opened their flies, twin cocks straining together. It shouldn’t be so beautiful. “Fuck,” he hissed. But then he remembered. “Mother and Father would offer you up in a second for a chance to lick his arse, and you know that. You’re nothing to them, nothing.”

Regulus gripped both their cocks in one hand, rolling his hips so the friction burned and branded. “I’m their only chance for an heir.” Regulus laughed, and it wasn’t the free sound of youth but the heavy burden of bad decisions and abandonment. “They won’t recognise any sprog of yours.”

“So that’s it, then?” Sirius struggled to keep his mind on the conversation, but salacious things were happening to his cock and the drug was making everything betterworse. “You fulfil your duty to the family name and when you’re of no further use, you just… die?”

“Not all of us can give everything up, Sirius,” Regulus snapped. He stood, bringing his cock to Sirius’ line of sight, and Sirius was amazed that it was exactly the same as his own only from an angle never before possible. “Now get up,” Regulus ordered, looking as petulant as ever with his prick proudly displayed.

Sirius obediently stood, letting Regulus steady him when he stumbled. If only he’d been able to do the same… but it was too late.

Regulus shimmied out of his trousers and pants and got onto his fours on the sofa. “Please, Sirius.”

“We’ve never…” he began, rubbing his eye with the ball of his fist.

“And what if we never do?” Regulus challenged.

That didn’t seem to be a very good argument, but Regulus’ skin was milky white and translucent, a roadmap of scars and blue veins, and his arse was high and tight looking… but his face… he needed Sirius, and it had been so long since he’d been really needed, or since Regulus had really needed someone… And it wouldn’t have been enough to convince him on any other day, but today, right now, it was enough. He could blame it on the drugs, but he’d always know he was lying.

But Sirius was rather used to lying to himself.

So he wasn’t altogether surprised to find himself kneeling behind his brother, kissing his tailbone and stroking his own cock.

Sirius watched almost from afar as Regulus sucked his own finger into his mouth and wet it, reaching behind himself and circling his hole.

“Fuck,” he whispered moving Regulus’ hand and replacing it with his own fingers. A well-loved spell had Regulus’ arse slicked, one finger sliding easily within.

“Wanted this,” Regulus whispered, his head bowed. His ribs were expanding rapidly, and Sirius watched, entranced, for a few moments before sliding another finger within.

Regulus was tight—so fucking tight—and hot and forbidden and his. When he was almost but not quite stretched enough, Sirius slid his cock between Regulus’ arsecheeks and pressed teasingly at his hole.

“Tell me,” Sirius encouraged, heart and mind racing, flooded with blood and memories.

“When we were younger… you were beautiful and so angry.”

Sirius pressed the head of his cock inside. Regulus continued to speak.

“I hated you for wanting to be different when all I wanted was to be like you.”

Sinking deeper, watching Regulus stretch around him, accommodating, accepting.

“And when you touched me I felt fire, and I knew it was wrong and I didn’t care. I never cared about anything but you.”

Fingertips dug into white hips, alabaster skin bruising immediately. Sirius never bruised that quickly. That was all Regulus. Differences were… to be…

“And when I knew you wanted me… and I always knew… I tried… but you were… so fucking… noble. ” Regulus was panting now, gasping as his body was thrust forward with the force of Sirius’ anger and disappointment.

Sirius reached and wrapped a tight fist around Regulus’ cock, letting his brother fuck himself back and forward. He couldn’t close his eyes or he’d fall away; there was only Regulus and it was important, it mattered, but it was fleeting and would be gone.

“Shut up,” Sirius demanded, thrusting harder, hating his brother for being so perfect, so enticing, so damaged.

For once in their lives, Regulus did as Sirius told him without complaint. He only moaned and cried out as Sirius began fucking him harder and harder.

“Sirius, please, so close,” Regulus said quietly, as though keeping his voice down meant he was still obeying.

Sirius began fisting Regulus’ prick without finesse, and while he, himself, would have balked at the harsh treatment, Regulus seemed to revel in it. He cried out again and again, sweet sounds in the dark night, darkness, black and white, Regulus.

Then Sirius’ hand was wet and Regulus was pushing the punishing grip away, only Sirius didn’t really want to let go, to fall away, to lose it all.

But he did lose it, precious moments later. He came hard and unexpectedly, shouting and gripping, nails tracking marks, marking, making a statement, staying.

He fell back against the arm of the couch, his trousers lowered around his thighs, cock greasy and stained with the one thing he’d swore—he’d swore—he’d never do.

Regulus shifted and curled against Sirius, his body hot and cold, already dead, a technicality.

A few clinks and a flare of heat told Sirius that Regulus had lit another poisoned cigarette. A moment later this was confirmed by the firework smell and the butt pressed against his lips. He didn’t open his eyes, only sucked on the fag and let the drug take away his fear and regret.

Now he knew why Regulus lived on the stuff. He had nothing but fear and regret. And now Sirius did as well.

Regulus fell asleep first, burning Sirius with the still-lit cigarette. He put it out against the couch and tossed it on the floor, stoppering the potion and shifting until they were lying side by side. He studied Regulus for a moment: black and white with pink, or red, now. Stained.

When he woke up the next morning, Regulus was gone without so much as a goodbye, and Sirius wouldn’t know how important that was until much later in his long and unimportant life.

Black and white. Black and pink. Black and red.

Black.

Fin.