Royals

mourir. 1792

❝But let us laugh carelessly like other men.

Let us be timid even among fools.

Let us knot silence around our throats.

For they would surely kill us.❞

Glenway Wescott

👑👑👑

No one knew what truly broke France, what was the last straw, the last affront or insult to the poors. No one from the bourgeoisie had been ready for the fire and hate thrown at them on the streets. They weren't used to this change of role, they had always been the ones in power, the ones who could spit in the face of a starving child and his dying mother with no consequences whatsoever.

But one day, one sacred day soon after Sirius and Adélaïde's wedding, the Bastille fortress was taken by a crowd of untrained peasants and rogue soldiers who were tired of the howling injustice they lived in.

Sirius' father, Orion, had then understood how far the French people were ready to go to gain rights, to have some bread to eat and some clear water to drink.

Walburga, on the other hand, had stayed blind to her husband's worries, she had been like an ostrich. Hiding herself between her golden walls and her tall glass of red wine. Slipping into the warm embrace of alcohol and illusion.

Sirius had been too sad to understand anything. He couldn't forget Remus' broken expression, it was so vivid in his mind, so fresh.

Regulus was the only one who listened to his father. He would read the journal and comment the new events with a tormented face.

The years had passed and the Black family was standing on a very dangerous cliff. Their lives dangling at the edge of a trap that would surely one day close itself around its victim.

Adélaïde was living with her husband, in the huge family manor. She had been happy to settle into one of the largest rooms of the entire house, making herself more at home in two days than Sirius had been able to in twenty four years.

Usually, young rich people who got married, would stay in at the family propriety as long as they did not have children of their own. Which was not going to happen soon, if Sirius could prevent it.

The first year after their marriage, Sirius had said that they were too young, that the time was not good. And then the Bastille had been taken and he had a better excuse to leave his wife's bed as much as he could.

The second year, she had been tired to see him run away from her. She had forced him down, kissing him and caressing him all over his body. He had tried to make love to her, he knew his life would be easier if he gave her a child, but he had never been able to. His body refused to do it.

He felt no attraction for Adélaïde, he did not want to hold her thin waist and touch her breast. Her skin was too soft, her edges too round, her hair too long and her lips too sweet.

He wanted rough hands and chestnut hair. He wanted bony fingers and hairy legs. He wanted a man.

He wanted Remus.

The third year, he had been unable to stop her. She had used her hands and mouth to finally coerce him into sex. They had spent the night into each other's arms, so close and yet so far. Sirius had never felt so cold.

Adélaïde had been pregnant, a slight bump slowly growing on her flat abdomen. Walburga had been ecstatic, the family name would survive. Even if the French bourgeoisie didn't. Orion had not said anything, he had just smiled with his usual dead eyes.

Regulus had congratulated his brother in front of their parents and Sirius' wife. Then he had hugged his brother all night as he cried. Regulus had always been seen as the weakest member of the family, the sick boy with broken lungs, the one who could not flirt with women, who only lived in his books.