GOOD DOG || Sirius Black

(Eighteen: Alexithymia)

Regulas, still not opening his eyes, scrunched up his nose, "No. They'll take us somewhere far away. Where we can hide."

"Do you want to hide?" Sirius frowned.

Regulas though for a second, and the nodded his head so vigorously that Sirius feared for his sibling's health, "Like when I was little. We used to play hiding games. Do you remember?"

"No." Sirius answered honestly.

Regulas had opened his eyes again, and grinned. That careless, gap-toothed grin that constricts your heart and makes you hope they never grow up, "That's 'cause I made them up. But in my minute, anything I say is real. And I say we played hiding games. So we did."

That was so long ago, and Sirius doubted his brother even remembered. Still, when he found Regulas waiting outside the Hospital Wing, he couldn't help but flash back to when he thought there was still hope for his brother to escape the clutches of the serpents.

"You aren't dead, then?" Regulas was picking at his cuticles, leaning against the wall opposite the Hospital Wing when Sirius emerged.

Sirius frowned, crossing his arms by instinct, and claiming the wall opposite, "Why would I be dead?"

"Snape said he saw you crawling off to Madame Pomfrey this morning." Regulas informed him lazily, "Said you were bleeding out all over the corridor."

"And you came to cry and mourn over my cold, dead body." Sirius finished, matching his tone, rhythm for rhythm with his brother's, "What a wonderful display of affection."

"I came because someone has to tell our parents if one of your idiotic plots finally backfired." Regulas corrected, "It would hardly be surprising, given the bloodtraitors and half-breeds you've been gallivanting around with."

Sirius placed a palm on his heart, right over the Gryffindor seal, "I love you too, bro."

Regulas raised his eyebrows, and then pushed off from the wall, "You got blood on the statue of Salazar Slytherin."

"Am I supposed to be sorry?" Sirius would have died before he admitted that two werewolves was a little more than even the four Marauders could take. They had all spent a little longer than usual in the Hospital Wing that day, getting patched up for invented injuries that Madame Pomfrey seemed to take in her stride.

To his surprise, Regulas just looked at him and said, "Just thought you'd like to know. It took Filch an hour to clean it off, and the eyes still look a little red-ish."

"Maybe a talking dragon will come and help him." Sirius offered his brother a half smile.

Regulas' face tightened, "Dragons are pests really. Merlin knows what they would say if they could speak, probably a lot of nonsense."

"Not much different to Slytherins then." Sirius muttered.

"Don't you find it ironic?" Regulas asked, sounding so much more self-assured than Sirius had at that age.

Sirius sighed, "Probably not."

"You call our parents prejudiced because they are wary of mudbloods, who are an unexplained phenomenon in our society," Regulas raised his eyebrows at him, "But you hate anyone who gets sorted into Slytherin, regardless of who they are."

"Your inability to see the difference between 'wary' and 'murderer' startles me." Sirius informed his brother.

Regulas smiled, "And your inability to see the difference between 'family' and 'enemy' tells me everything I need to know."