Chapter Text
Sirius is nothing like his family. Not like his father who always has the smell of liquor and smoke on his breath and who has different lipstick stains on his collar every week's end. Not like his mother who has nails just as sharp as her words, who will use anything she can get her hands on to discipline either of her children. Not like his twin sister, who's cold in both touch and feeling, who follows what is told to her like a blind duckling mistaking a hawk for its parent. He can't be like any of them, for he doesn't believe in the Holy God Above, for he believes that every man is equal, for the sight of both men and women make him think that he might be the devil himself.
He relishes in the thought. Devils and demons are handsome, made from sin, and who is he if not a believer that the years of cousins marrying cousins have brought him both his looks and the torment in his mind. He would like to say it's a fair trade off, even when his face is always covered in scratch marks and his back is littered with burn scars, bruises, and stabs. It doesn't matter to him, he's convinced he'll die before he even hits marriageable age, the cousin he's betrothed to might just have to suffer and marry outside of the family tree as he was the only born male of the generation. Oh the horror of such a thing. The thought makes him smile. He has no reason to live, not here, in this dark desolate house, who's walls can hear almost everything that's said inside, a home in which not even the one you came out of the womb with can be your true confidant.
The floorboards creak even when no one walks along them, the walls groan from just how long the home has been standing, the dark walls never painted a color above deep green or medium gray, chairs in sitting rooms used more for decoration then use with how uncomfortable they are. He wants the house to come crumbling around him one day. He thinks it will be a mercy with all the sins he's already committed in his fifteen years of living.
He wishes he could leave. His body hurts and the blood on his face caused by the talons- not nails, they're too sharp to be called nails- belonging to Mère. Sometimes he wonders if she sharpens them just for him. Sirius wouldn't be surprised. He's just glad she only used her hands this time around. When she reaches for the umbrella, or worse, he can hardly sit down for the next few days, never mind lay on his back and stare at the ceiling as he is now.
He wonders about the future while he stares at his ceiling, not his own, but the world’s. If one day he could act on his desires on men just like he can on the pretty church girls that twirl their hair and ask him how he got the scar that sits on his eyebrow with fake sincerity. He wonders if one day people would care more about the pain that wracks his body as his own mother kicks him when he's down. He wonders if anyone can be truly happy. He sometimes wonders if the world is dying instead of changing for the better, if the amount of bones he finds during his outings are trying to tell him something that he can't figure out quite yet.
He's kicked out of his lamenting as two quiet knocks hit his door. There's only one person who knocks, even the hired help doesn't, and so he, in English, tells them to come in. It only comes out as a whisper, his voice is still wrecked from earlier. Mère tells him that boy's don't cry, but sometimes it's so hard not to.
Sirius' door opens just enough for his sister, the small and thin thing she is, to slip in. Her head is held high and her back is straight and she's carrying a damp cloth along with an ointment bottle. There is a sour look on her face that he knows is reserved for him only as her flats make hardly noticeable clicks on the floor and she drags the chair at his desk to the edge of his bed. He's used to that look, the look that once made him feel so guilty. He's grown numb to it now. Apathetic to his own blood. He still remembers when they were younger though, when she would smile at him like he was the best thing in her world and he would reciprocate whole heartedly, when she should show him the rocks she found while they explored the estate together and he would show her the animal bones that caught his eye. He misses those days. He wonders when they stopped.
She puts what's in her hands on the bed and she flattens her dress with her hands before she forcefully drags Sirius closer to the edge of the bed by his arm. Sirius hisses as the tip of her fingernails dig right into where Mère's did only half an hour earlier.
She quickly pulls her own hands away at the sound before she grabs the damp cloth, pressing it to his skin as gently as they both know how to before she starts to clean him up. She scolds him while she cleans his wounds.
"I have told you time and time again," She says in English, "to stop provoking her. Yet you cannot even manage such a task."
Sirius can't do much but stare at his wall as she goes through the same lecture that she always gives him. It's painted red, slightly lighter than the rest of the dark house, he revels in this small victory of his.
He hisses as his sister presses and rubs harder against his skin, just like she does every time she gets fed up with him. He can never tell if she does it on purpose or not. If it's meant as a punishment or the both of them only knowing the gentleness they are given.
"I need you to listen to me this time. " She says, still in English, because the house cannot speak on things they do not know. The workers inside the house, except for the tutors, cannot speak English, and despite how Sirius can never tell what his sister is thinking anymore, he knows she's grateful that their parents usually hire ones who cannot understand. He knows because he is too, he's sure he'd be even more trapped if the help inside the house knew English.
She turns his head to the other side and clicks her tongue, shaking her head as she starts to get the crust off that side of his face.
"Mère will make you sleep with the horses next. Not even with the servants. She'll stick you in the stables"
He knows that his sister is trying to warn him, but Sirius can't think of a downside, better than sleeping in a house with the woman who gave birth to him. He says as much.
"I think you'll come to see that's a positive, dear sister of mine." He smirks at her, trying to rile out the playfulness and that bond they had as children, something he tries almost every time, and every time he hisses out another complaint through his teeth as his twin glares at him and presses down harder on his wounds again.
"Can you not behave? Is it simply not in your nature? I know you only go to church to sleep in the back and make the girls squeal as if they are not aware you are playing with their feelings."
Sirius rolls his eyes, "It's all just fun, they know that."
"What about Jacqueline? Marguerite? Irène ?"
"Not my fault they're just simple women." Sirius says with the best imitation of a shrug he can possibly do at this time, "My name is already spoken for, it's not my fault they’ve simply forgotten that fact." He doesn't mention that sometimes Irène has sharpened teeth, that sometimes her legs don't match the rest of her, and that she stares at him in a way that makes him think she wants to eat him, and not in the desirable way books so often describe. He knows he'd sound crazy if he voiced those thoughts, he doesn't even believe himself when he sees it.
Sirius doesn't get a warning when the cloth pulls away and he's hit with it, he sputters when damp cloth strings gets into his mouth and he rubs his lips with his sleeve, cringing when he can feel a cut or two opening up at the gesture. His sister huffs almost like she's telling him 'Serves you right.' She doesn't say it out loud of course, she's too good for that.
She grabs the ointment and dips some on her finger, giving no warning before she dabs it on his skin. He jolts and curses, "God- Shit-"
When he looks over to her, he can tell that somewhere in the past few seconds he fucked up, because his sister is staring at him with nothing but discontent, the ice in her heart traveling to show in her eyes. It takes him a few more seconds to figure out how he offended his twin. Mainly because she tells him.
"Don't say The Lord's name in vain." She hisses and Sirius knows that this is a jar of worms he doesn't want to open, so he nods and lets her tend to the rest of his injuries in silence. They don't say another word to each other before she mumbles, "Anywhere else?" He doesn't reply and she seems to take it as the answer it is, nodding and standing up, collecting the objects she brought into her hands before she walks out without another word. He stares at the chair still by his bed, the one she didn't clean up and put back in its place. Sirius knows that it's her way of just being passive aggressive, leaving it out for Sirius to push back to his desk despite whatever injuries he has. She does this almost every time and almost every time, just as he does now, he curses her in his mind as he rolls over slowly to stand and put it back, because he knows himself. If he doesn't do it right away it won't get done at all and one morning he'll wake up, trip on it, and die when his head hits the floor.
He pauses when the thought crosses his mind. Maybe such a thing wouldn't be too bad, no one would notice until his corpse starts attracting things anyway, his mother hates being in his room, it's messy and has pictures from magazine's he's stolen while out in the town, his father never interacts with either of his children if he can help it, and his sister only talks to him when cleaning up his wounds nowadays. All in all, it would be a great way to go, inconveniencing everyone while ridding the world of himself at the same time.
Sirius smiles as he spins before dramatically falling to the floor, playing corpse with a smile on his face despite the pain that his dramatics have caused him. He thinks that's how he'd like to go, young, hot, smiling, and still somehow annoying each and every single one of his close family members.
Another thought crosses his mind however. He hasn't kissed a man yet, something he deeply yearns to do, he can't die yet, not when he hasn't felt the touch of something so taboo, so forbidden, it feels like it was made just for him. Maybe he won't die just yet.
-
She wishes she was nothing like most of her family. Part of her wish has come true, she's not at all sure how she's related to her brother despite coming into the world mere minutes behind him, with his wide smile and trouble seemingly written into his bones. However she knows she is very much like Mère. Their looks are so similar, it's almost disturbing. She has the rage of her mother, the ability to strike where it hurts with just a few words and the way she oozes superiority in a way that cannot be taught. She's like Father in how she's distant and cold to an unloving degree. She knows this, well aware of how others see her and she wishes she could change.
Instead, she does wish she was more like Sirius, at least in looks if nothing else. He can have the energy that seems to flow through him, he can have the friends and popularity, he can keep the trouble making, rage inducing personality. The thing she most wants from him is his body. She wants to peel the skin from his tendons and muscle and bones and drape it on top of her own. To hide the parts of her that make her feel almost sick to look at whenever she's placed in front of her mirror each morning to get dressed.
She's much too big here, far too small there, she can never be happy with what looks back at her in the mirror, no matter how much makeup she pats on, no matter the dress or skirt. It's all wrong and she can't help but want to claw every part of flesh off of her body and start again. Grow in the way it feels like she was meant to, in the way that would finally feel natural to her.
She thinks Mère knows. Mère pets her and smiles when she doesn't eat the whole meal that's on the plate in front of her, and when she does finish it all Mère gets that wrinkle between her eyebrows which only tells her that she's done something wrong.
When that happens she isn't served breakfast the next morning. It gives her mixed feelings, because while the things she doesn't want to grow don't; the places she wants to thicken out also shrink. She can never have it all.
She looks to answers in the bible, just as Mère and the pastor always tell her she should. She flips and scours and reads the thing front to back, back to front, time and time again while she prays every night for God to fix her. To make her feel right. To make her feel as right as she did when she was younger, when Sirius and her were still always getting mixed up.
She knows she'll never be happy with herself, it's something her poison filled mind could never allow, she someday wants to no longer have the urge to rip her vocal cords out of her throat every time she speaks but she knows such a day will never happen. She thinks that feeling is why she's so good at staying silent like a child and woman should.
However she wasn't silent enough. Mère caught wind of her helping Sirius with his injuries and now she's locked away.
She hates the closet. It's small enough to where she, despite her size, has to curl up and hug her knees and her feet still often touch the door anyways. It's too dark, it makes her see things that do not exist, play tricks with her mind in a way that only happens during those rare moments when Mère raises a hand to her. It makes her think of things she can usually drive away with books and research, but in such darkness, in such a cramped space, she knows she just has to stick it out. She knows what happens when she doesn't, when she somehow finds herself in the hall after blinking for a moment too long. She'll be beaten black and blue, just like how Sirius often is.
She has no idea how long it's been, but she was placed here after breakfast, when Mère beckoned her with a frown and roughly shoved her in. She hit her head on one of the racks when Mère did that, but the blood that slowly dripped from the cut has stopped, and now it just leaves an uncomfortable grimy feeling on her skin that she knows she cannot scratch off no matter how much she wants to because she knows it would most likely start to bleed again. Her fingers tap in intervals of two on the floor to calm herself.
She looks to where, approximately, she hit her head and wonders if she'll have to clean her own blood from the wood.
A thought slips into her head. It tells her about how she could pry the wood out of its crevice and use it to cut the violin cords that make up her own voice. She tries to shake herself out of it, but it's hard when there's no light and such thoughts are her only companions here. She knows Mère shoved a towel underneath the door to make it as awful as she possibly could. Mère always does.
She feels her hand reach out, unbidden, to feel along the wood, grasping a corner before pulling. It doesn't get anywhere though, not when she hasn't properly eaten for at least a day and a half. The hand drops in defeat but she's only happy she doesn't have to clean up the blood that would come from her own body if she had the strength to listen to that voice in her head.
She bites her lip, hard. The pain is grounding and she starts to mumble a small lullaby to keep her mind occupied further than thoughts of pain. She knows not to make it too loud or else she'll be kept in the mind distorting darkness for much longer then whatever unknown time has been planned for her.
She closes her eyes and remembers of a time when Sirius would sit outside the closet and talk to her, keep her company before he was dragged away just to come back an hour later at most. She tried that once for him, but Mère had slapped her silly. She learned her lesson after that and she never tried again.
Sirius would always tap twice against the door, and in current times she knocks a knuckle on the ground twice in a mimicry of the memory before thinking about how Sirius would press his face to any crevasse he thought he could fit into so she could see at least the smallest part of him, she did the same now, then he always smiled big and wide with teeth, she tried it but the way her skin stretched felt unnatural and odd. Sirius would press his lips to the biggest opening he could find and chatter about whatever popped into his mind before he got too loud and a servant found him and dragged him away. She feels almost embarrassed as she presses her lips to where the door and wall connect while she stops her lullaby to talk to herself.
She runs out of material embarrassingly fast. She has no close friends like he has, she tries to stay out of the spotlight as much as she can while her last name is still Black, she's not much of a mischievous person like he is. She has no material to tell herself except how her mind screams that something is in the dark with her, or that it tells her something much worse, that she belongs to be in a place as dark as this for her entire life. So she stops. Stops being childish and remembering the past as though it could still happen. Stops pretending that Sirius has looked at her with anything other than pity and apathy for years.
She situates herself on her knees and crosses herself before she prays, a tear slipping out of her now closed eyes as the words feel heavy on her lips and tongue.
It's then when the thought pops into her mind unprompted.
'I wish I was a man.' She couldn't stop how her eyes shot open, words dying on her lips, and how her breath quickened at the thought.
She couldn't tell if it was a reaction from fear or excitement, She's only felt one of those emotions in recent times where she could remember how it felt, how was she supposed to know? She's aware that it was most likely one of those demons coming into her mind, prompting it with sin like the pastor talked about, but once the thought came to her it was like she couldn't stop thinking it.
'I wish I had a deeper voice, one that I wouldn't have to pitch up like Mère says I should.'
'I wish my waist would get bigger, that it would flatten out with the rest of me.'
'I wish I could cut my hair; short and to my ears.'
She didn't know if it was like all those other thoughts that would pop into her mind at times, the ones that told her she could stab her dinner knife into her hand or the ones where her mind tells her to push the closest person into the fireplace while it's lit.
They give her different feelings, one fills her with a longing, a wish that she could follow through, while the other makes her terrified of her own mind. Both fill her gut with rocks.
They both make her clench her fists and hold her hands to her sides as she tries to change what her mind is telling her, forcing herself to think of the last book she read, how it ended and how it could be much better, how she would have written it instead. Whispers of a different life, different version of herself, fill the cracks she couldn't plug up well enough with her distractions.
When she gets let out she doesn't know how long she was in there, all she knows is that it's suddenly morning again. She frowns, knowing what she missed, but Mère pats her head as she stumbles out and suddenly she can't bring herself to care anymore - or feel anything at all.
-
Sirius watches the sun rise with a stolen smoke between his fingers and his best friend at his side. They lean on the side of the house, and Sirius knows that this is the time that the help who work outside the house start to become active, when they leave their beds or come to the estate, that this is when Sirius and Luis can, and will be, caught. However, Sirius doesn't care. He hasn't in a long time.
The few birds still around in this dry weather sing as the sun rises along with the smoke coming from the two boy's mouths and fingers.
The lull in their conversation broken quickly,
"Do you know where Dennie was last night?"
Sirius stares. Why would that question even be asked?
"Quoi?" He ignores the question to ask a clearly more pressing issue.
She wasn't missing, no, Sirius knew exactly where she was last night, but why would this even be a question?
Well, no, he does know. He's not stupid or anything, he knows Luis thinks she's pretty, he never hid it from Sirius, but the way he asked made it seem like the two of them had plans.
He was confused, utterly baffled, until a thought popped into his head, a smirk spread on his lips.
"Were you trying to woo her again?" Sirius asked with a laugh, and without waiting for an answer continued, "Elle t'aimera jamais, ça a jamais été le cas et le sera jamais"
Luis looked down and shrugged, bringing the cigarette to his lips, and Sirius shook his head, still chuckling.
"Dois-je te rappeler quand je vous ai présenté l'un à l'autre? Comme après un regard, elle a levé le nez avant de déguerpir?"
Luis didn't say anything but a blush covered the boy's tan skin and it was more than enough of an answer.
"What did you do this time?" Sirius asked, stepping away from the side of the building and spinning so he faced his friend with his arms out wide and a disbelieving smile on his face, "Try to convince her to see you for a late night rendezvous while she read?" He asked, before his smile grew and he couldn't help listing more things that his friend had done in the past to try and woo his sister but failed.
"Gave her a bouquet of wildflowers, of which she is allergic? Tried to convince her to get in the pond only for her to tell you that she can't swim? Gave her an anonymous letter only for her to rip it up while you watched in the bushes? Je t'en supplie, dis-moi comment tu t'es loupé cette fois-ci."
Sirius, usually, would hate his best friend drooling over his own twin sister, but watching and hearing about him fail chance after chance after chance was amazing enjoyment. It gave him ways to both bother his sister and to hear about his friend's horrible taste in romance. It gave him comfort to know that someone thought about kissing worse things than men. He lets this happen because he knows it will never go anywhere. He lets it happen because his sister is a type of cold that wouldn't even warm up to the sun.
But Luis stays silent, blushing down at the ground. It takes him a few minutes to speak while Sirius just watches, waiting.
"Une autre lettre. Avec son dîner."
Sirius clicks his tongue on the roof of his mouth and shakes his head while taking a drag.
"Elle n'a pas rejoint le reste de la famille pour le dîner." Sirius doesn't like to think about what that meant.
But Luis nods and changes topics, Sirius let him.
"What do you think about America?"
Sirius shrugs, moving back to lean against the dark wood and stone of the estate.
"J'ai pas vraiment d'avis sur la question, c'est probablement un endroit décent si j'en crois la haine que lui porte ma mère."
Luis nods and they continue talking until one of the hired help finds them and drags Luis back to the stables while shooting Sirius a glare.
Sirius almost thought about just dropping the cigar, letting it light fire to the dry lands and the dry house that was never a home, letting it eat the people inside. But he didn't, he couldn't. Not when he still remembers how bright his sister's smile and the sound of her laugh was when they were younger. He almost wishes he knew when it changed and she decided to never smile again. He crushes it out with the bottom of his shoe instead. If he believed in God, then he would probably assume that he needs an exorcist. But if God existed why would he let his followers be treated the way Sirius has been since he was a pure sinless infant?
-
It's late when she sneaks out in her twin's clothes and the flats that don't make too much noise.
She rationalizes to herself that she's wearing the pants because it makes it easier to sneak around, not because she gave in and dipped into the thoughts that have been plaguing her mind for months now. Not because the other day she read through a book on astrology and read the name Regulus, Little Prince , and felt something that she never wanted to click, snap into place inside her.
She reaches a hidden alcove and smiles at the person standing there, waiting for her. It's not a big smile, it's actually hardly noticeable, but Luis smiles back, putting out the smoke on the brick he's leaning against and letting it drop to the ground. She can't help but wrinkle her nose and Luis lets out a small laugh at her reaction.
"I know, I know, you hate it."
"I do." She says in English, Her voice is accented in a way that his isn't, he wasn't born and raised in France, He could hardly speak French at all when he came to work for them on the grounds with his father, so she spoke in English for him. It was the least she could do.
She watches his eyes flick across what she is wearing and she feels her face heat up, but Luis' smile doesn't drop.
"This is new." It's said like a good thing, and she can't help the flutter in her stomach.
"I thought it would be easier to go out like this than one of my dresses." It's a lie, and she can tell from his face that he knows it’s one too, but he lets her get away with it just like he lets her get away with so many other things. He pulls her in close, farther into the hidden place they've carved for themselves, leans down, and kisses her.
She can't think about much other than her mind screaming at her that she's getting kissed while dressed in man's clothes and can't help but feel giddy for reasons she refuses to think too much about.
She still smiles, even as their lips still touch.
Luis pulls away, a smile of his own on his face, "You seem happy, my paramour."
She forces a frown, a thing she's surprised that she has to do, frowning usually comes so easily to her, but when it comes to Luis and that stupid nickname that he can never pronounce properly and the unknown giddiness she can't help but feel so warm for once in her life, "What's your point?"
Luis shakes his head and says nothing, smile still there and shining and she can't help but stare. She can't wait for her birthday to come.
This time, she's the one who pulls him down for a kiss and her mind is blissfully silent after her bout of giddiness. Every time she goes to meet him, words wiggle themselves into her mind, telling her that they'll get caught, that this is against the Lord's word, that it will all come crashing down around her and that she will never be able to keep this happiness, but it all gets silenced when she's with him. Luis with his tan skin, messy black hair, thick eyebrows. He's older, seventeen instead of fifteen, but she doesn't mind, she'd probably have to marry someone much older when the time comes anyway.
' But it wont. ' She reminds herself, and she feels so pleased at the thought.
She lets herself fall into his touch, his hands untucking the shirt that does not belong to her and slipping into her waistband while her hands feel along his front, nails occasionally digging in.
She loves him, even if she acts like she doesn't in front of others, she really, truly does. He makes her feel safe and needed. Something he hasn't felt since Sirius left for that boarding school that he ended up getting kicked out of.
They're lost in each other, and his lips disconnect from hers, his warmth leaving her to deal with the cold of the night on her own as Luis moves to kiss and nip at her jaw and neck instead.
She tries to swallow her gasps as he warms her up in a very different way. She moves her hands to clutch to his shoulders and she feels him smile against her skin.
It's somehow that action that causes her to come back to herself and tense slightly. Either Luis doesn't notice or doesn't care, and he continues with his bites and pecks.
"S-Should we be doing this?" She asks through gasps unwillingly pulled from her.
She's not talking about them being together. She already knows the answer to that, she means what they're doing now, the intimacy, how far they're going. It goes against God's will, even if it feels wonderful. They're not married yet, which means they can't do something like this. They just have to wait a few months, because they haven't made their vows yet. She knows that she can wait a few more months, however it doesn't seem like Luis can.
Because Luis does not share her qualms.
"We'll be married in a few months anyway. It's fine." he says against her skin. He says what she's thinking, but in a completely different manner, and well, she has to agree, doesn't she? He's not wrong.
She nods, a small short thing, she doesn't know if it's because she's still not totally convinced or because she doesn't want his lips to leave her skin, but she still accepts his answer despite her hesitancy.
She's taken for the first time outside, against a stone wall, and it hurts. She cries in front of Luis for the first time as well. He whispers promises that it'll be better next time as he kisses her neck and groans sound his own enjoyment. She doesn't know if she wants a next time, but she knows it will happen anyway. She will be his wife when the autumn comes and despite what just happened, she'll be ecstatic about it. She just has to recover from this first.
A little bit of discomfort is worth a happy ending. She's still counting down the days before her birthday, when Luis and she will board a boat to America and the first thing they'll do is get married. She'll be a wife.
He whispers that word in her ear when they're done instead of her usual nickname, with a big and bright smile on his face that would usually cause her to look away with a fierce blush. He calls her wife like it's going to be a replacement for the usual 'paramour' he whispers to her. She forces a smile at her future title and doesn't mention that it makes something itch under her skin, that it's unpleasant in a way that hearing that word being used to refer to her makes her ears ring and buzz unpleasantly. Wife .
She knows she'll be one, and then she'll be a mother. She doesn't know why she's fine with the idea of having his family, but the titles make her feel ill. She knows what she'll be, it's what she has been expecting her whole life and yet she still feels discomforted at the thought.
She walks back to the manor tired and sweaty and aching, she feels damp and used in a way she never has before. Her heart feels heavy as she walks and she can't figure out why.
She hears a crunch of dry grass snapping behind her and the hair on her neck and arms raise at the sound. She turns around, whispering her lover's name in a question. It could just be Luis, nothing to worry about, but a deep, inhuman, growl answers her instead and she swears she can see the form of something large in the light of the moon.
She runs back inside, convinced that what answered wasn't something her mind made up despite not being able to see it properly. The noise it made reverberated in her ears, bouncing inside her skull, making her heart stop as she stepped back before turning and speeding up as she ran. Once inside she draws herself a bath and falls asleep in the water with lit candles surrounding her, never making it to her bed that night. She thinks she wouldn't have been able to fall asleep if she had.
For the next few weeks she swears she sees the thing. That it follows her from the corner of her eye or looks into the house's windows. She can never nail down the form properly, her eyes flitting around, not quite focusing on the being that she knows is there. She's taken to shutting the curtains whenever in a room. She locks her door at night and can never fall asleep without a candle lit. She feels like a child again, and the scratch marks littering her arms only cement the fact that she knows she's slipping. She's jumping at any unexpected noise, holding her breath as she passes by any uncovered windows or unlocked doors.
Every once in a while she'll open a curtain, beating herself as she sees nothing in the window, convinced that her paranoia is pointless and that she's just being a silly little girl.
Then she'll see it again from the corner of her eye, see it watching her from the gardens or the pond or the rest of the countryside. She feels it stalking her every time she slips out of the house in her brother's old clothes to get fondled in hidden corners.
She feels like she's getting hunted, that she's just a simple rabbit and a snake is watching her burrow, waiting for the perfect time to strike.
She's harsher because of it, she knows. Snapping at her brother and anyone other than her parents and Luis.
She yells at the chefs for their incompetence and how dare they put so much food on her plate and expect her to eat all of it like she's some pig. She throws a gardener's tools in the pond in front of him with a smile. She tells him to go and fetch, to go get them or else she'll make him lose his job, she humiliates him and gives him the option of getting soaking wet in his own clothes or strip and take the chance that someone will walk by and he'll lose his job anyway. She picks at the feather dusters, making sure they'll come apart as soon as they're used before she berates the maids for their incompetence. Sirius avoids her after she stuffed the dirty cloth she used to clean his wounds into his mouth to shut him up after he said the wrong thing. She didn't even use the ointment like usual, instead she forced his lips around the damp cloth and left. It makes her feel better in some odd way, that she's in control of someone else, that the paranoia and fear that has started to follow her around gets pushed onto someone else instead. She starts to crave that control, the one she can't have in her own life or even in her own mind.
Luis is the only one who's spared from her wrath, with his kind words and soft kisses and warm body. The one person who turns her mind off and is able to turn her into a pile of nothingness. It's wonderful whenever they meet up, her wearing old clothes that feel so comforting on her skin in a way that nothing else ever has and he doesn't question it or her, he accepts it and it's wonderful.
She's also started to refer to herself as Regulus in her own head. It calms her down, makes the anxiety that she feels less noticeable. She reasons with herself that if she had found a coping mechanism as simple as referring to herself differently then it shouldn't be considered a sin, she's not relying on it instead of the Lord's Word, she tells herself that both help, but she knows it's a lie and the guilt of the truth eats at her just like the paranoia does.
-
Sirius wakes up to a scream.
It's late, he checks the window and the moon is still up and he wonders which person on staff fucked up this time. He doesn't get up though, despite staff punishments usually being dealt with outside it's not a once in a lifetime experience for it to happen inside. He lays on his bed while the screams and cries travel between floors. Must be someone new if they don't know the Mistress and Master of the house hate screaming and crying. Even from their own children. He's actually pretty sure they hate it more if it's from their own children.
But now he can't sleep. The screams remind him too much of his own, too much of his sister's screams. It makes him worried in a way he hasn't been in years despite how she has treated him recently.
It takes far too long for him to roll his eyes and get out of bed, his skin crawls but he ignores it as he puts on a shirt and opens the door. The noise gets much louder. The screams can be made into something partially understandable now. And it still sounds too much like his sister to make him feel comfortable.
It makes him take the stairs two at a time, still avoiding the squeaking boards but not caring too much if he missteps in his haste.
He reaches the hallway and it's there when he can make out words fully.
"Mère, s'il vous plait-" He hears his sister's voice crack. "Je suis désolée- s'il vous plait-"
It makes his blood run cold. He can't remember the last time his sister sounded like that. She shouldn't. She was the one made for this house, while he wasn't. She was the one that was supposed to thrive in this abysmal place, yet here she was pleading in the spot he usually claimed.
He picks up the pace, heartbeat quickening, and makes it to the dark sitting room, standing in the doorway as he looks at his sister, on the floor, clothes ripped, blood sluggishly dripping from her face and arms. She's wearing clothes that had once been Sirius' with a face that reminds him so much of when they were younger. Wide eyes and wobbly lips. She's looking at the woman in front of her, their mother, in fear that hadn't shown itself in her in so long. It made Sirius' own limbs feel heavy, unmoving even if he wanted to.
Mère looks furious, veins bulging, jaw clenched. Looking at her own daughter as though she is the scum of the world or the dirt under her shoe. Sirius wasn't use to the same amount of rage that's always been aimed at him being handed to someone else, someone who he exited the womb with.
"Si tu étais désolée," Mère hisses, "Tu ne l'aurais pas fait."
Sirius looks to the floor and finds the umbrella laying, useless, having hardly been fully opened and only being properly being used once or twice. Sirius doesn't want to think about why it's already on the floor, discarded.
He doesn't know how to feel. He knows whatever he's feeling now is unpleasant, twisting his insides as he watches the scene before him, but he can't name it.
"Tu invites des démons dans cette maison et les enlace." Mère walks to the other side of the room, and Sirius sees it as what it is, the calm before the storm. He looks to his sister and can tell that she sees it too.
"Qui va t'aimer maintenant?" Mère asks, walking to the lit fireplace, hands behind her back.
She turns her head to Sirius and he doesn't know how long she's known he was standing there. It makes his skin crawl and goosebumps make the hair on his arms raise at her look. Like she's trying to make a punishment out of the both of them. Mère then turns around and sneers at her daughter, his sister .
"Dis lui." She says, and when Sirius turns his head to the body on the floor, his sister looks back at him with wide, tearful eyes but doesn't say or do anything but open and close her mouth several times before turning her head to look at the opposite wall where no one stands. She's silent when she shouldn't be and Sirius thinks about how she berates him every time she cleans up his scrapes and cuts and bruises. He hasn't done the same in so long. He doesn't think he wants to know why she's in his position, but the curiosity itches at him. He has to know. He has to. Because despite everything she's done to him. everything that's happened between them, she is still his sister. He could never scrub away the love he feels for her no matter how hard he tries.
The walls flicker in the firelight and the sound that leaves the woman standing is almost unnatural. She walks up to the girl on the floor, grabs her hair, and yanks her head back, forcing brother and sister to lock eyes. Sirius sees tears fall from his sister's eyes and he feels his own lungs struggle under some mysterious weight that he doesn't want to name. If he had to though, he thinks it would be guilt.
"Dis lui ce que tu as fait. Explique-lui pourquoi tu te fais châtier." Sirius feels he can't look away, watching the tears drip down a face that's so similar to his own.
"I-" His sister tries to look anywhere but him, eyes flickering about the room and never settling, but the woman grips her hair harder, pulling more, and Sirius can hear a whimper and watches his sister squeeze her eyes shut tight. More tears pour down her face and he can't help but watch.
He feels his stomach get heavy and bile filling his throat. His own eyes seem heavy as his sister finally opens her own and their eyes lock once again. Her eyes still shaking about, like she's struggling to maintain the contact.
"I was- I was with him-" She says, in English, the words so soft they're almost lost behind her hiccups.
"I-" She cuts herself off with a sob, coughs racking her body and Sirius still can't look away,
"I broke my promise-" She whimpers again when the woman tightens her grip before continuing, "-promise to God."
The woman lets go of her hair and she goes down with a thump and Sirius can finally see the growing bruises left on his twin's skin inflicted by the umbrella on her neck and some of her shoulders as the firelight hits her form. He can see the bruises travel under the shirt through the rips in the fabric, but he can't make himself think about it too hard.
But his mind is still buzzing, whirring with information and he can't help but look at his sister like he doesn't know her.
Because he doesn't. He hasn't known her in so long. He doesn't know how she got her hands on his old clothes, he doesn't know who 'him' is, and he doesn't know why she would do... that. He's used to this soft spoken but cold hearted girl, but that is not what is before him and Sirius is hit with the thought that maybe he hasn't known his sister in a while. The weight laying heavy on his lungs gain and he wheezes slightly.
He's not paying attention to the woman as he stands still while his mind scrambles to piece things together, feeling as though he can't move a single muscle. He can't remember the last time he blinked since the information reached his ears. The word 'him' echoes in his mind as he tries to connect pieces of a puzzle he doesn't actually want to finish.
"Do you know where Dennie was last night?"
Something said to him ages ago, a throw away line that hasn't come up since because he has no actual want to know about what men find his sister attractive unless it's to make fun of them.
He feels his eyes go wide and his breath go fast and he takes a stumble backwards now that his joints have finally unlocked themselves with an uncomfortable but silent pop. He hears his sister's cries getting louder, but he doesn't think he can focus.
How dare he.
How dare Luis do this to his sister, how dare he use her only to throw her away and make her deal with the aftermath alone.
"We were going to marry!" His sister cries and that jolts Sirius out of whatever state her previous words put him in.
"Pitié… on allait se marier." She cries, shoulders shaking, but the woman at the front of the room tsks and shakes her head. Sirius feels like he can only watch, hands shaking at his side as he sees his vision darken.
"Tu crois vraiment qu'il t'aurait mariée? Maintenant qu'il a eu ce qu'il voulait de toi?"
His sister gasps on the floor, forehead pressing to the cold hardwood as she cries. Sirius can see her shake her head and he doesn't know if she's agreeing with the woman or trying to shake the doubts out.
Sirius watches her cry and he feels like he can't do anything. He finally feels like the older brother he promised her he would be despite only being born minutes before she was as she shakes on the floor. Yet he can't do anything to help her. He feels useless here in front of the woman, a feeling he should be use to by now as he always feels useless in Mère's presence.
It doesn't help that they're not close anymore, he doesn't know anything about her except for her name and he hasn't for years. It makes him feel choked.
Sirius hears the clang of metal against metal and his head turns. He doesn't know if his sister has done the same but he's stuck watching in the doorway as the woman in the room pulls out the fire poker from its resting place.
Sirius will always remember how it burns, the phantom aches on his back that have accumulated over the years have never truly gone away and he doubts they will anytime soon.
He's frozen to his spot as he watches the woman heat up the metal, watches as she walks across the carpet to the wooden floors his sister is lying on. He can't focus on anything other than her tight grip on the metal pole in her hands and how he knows how it hurts. How it burns.
His sister hasn't lifted her head, and she hasn't stopped her sobs.
He watches as the woman takes her foot and pushes his sister so she's laying on her back. He watches as his sister's eyes grow wide and focus on the hot metal just like his own do. The woman has never used the heated rod on his front, only the back, and it makes him have to swallow the bile back to make sure he doesn't actually throw up.
He watches as the woman holds his sister down as she screams and tries to wiggle away in vain. The metal hasn't even touched her yet but he knows how the heat can emanate from it, how the warning of the pain to come can almost makes it worse.
He watches as the woman draws up more blood from his sister from how hard she's gripping his sister's shoulder and he watches as the metal touches the fabric of the shirt.
His sister still screams despite the barrier.
He watches as the fabric melts into skin like candle wax melts to wood. He watches as it burns her lower stomach and how the woman lets it sit like she always does to him when she uses it for his own punishments.
The metal is finally pulled away from the skin, but it doesn't do without some of the skin being pulled away with it. She screams while the woman shushes her, and when that doesn't work, she backhands his sister. And he is still standing under the arch of the entryway. Watching. Sirius feels like it's the only thing he can do. He's stuck to the floor like his old clothes stick to his sister's skin with her own sweat and blood.
He watches as the woman brings up the fire poker again, and he feels it would drip the blood of its victims, his and his sister's, if it wasn't so hot. The woman brings the metal to his sister's face and sneers.
"Comment pourrait-il t'aimer si tout ce pourquoi tu es bonne est ruiné?" The woman taunts and lets the metal press to his sisters face, "Comment te mariera t-il maintenant?"
The fire poker rests across her jaw, the tip almost poking her eye out, but the woman ignores the sobs and screams and pleads and only presses harder.
"Brûler les démons est un travail si laborieux." He hears the woman mumble and it's then Sirius' own tears are realized to himself.
Demons. Of course. That's all they will ever be to her.
His breathing is heavy and his hands are clenched as he watches his mother finally drag the fire poker away.
Sirius can see his sister's bone.
His mind is fuzzy and his vision feels dark, the night pouring from the window not helping. He can't help but stare at the metal that's still so hot despite the cooler temperature of the room and how it was used seconds before.
The woman steps away, still keeping her eyes on the girl on the floor, the girl who's now gone silent and who's breathing has wavered and thinned.
He doesn't want to explain why he did what he did but he just couldn't help it. The woman wasn't paying attention to him anymore, instead reheating the metal and watching the girl on the floor.
Sirius darts forward, his body feels too fast for his mind- or is it the other way around? He's not entirely sure.
As the woman turns to him, raising the fire poker out of the flames, most likely to strike him with it, he slams into her, something in his mind telling him to aim lower, telling him to make her fall and stumble. Her knees buckle under his weight, but the hot metal still strikes his shoulder. He doesn't feel the pain it brings, only the weight of it.
He hooks his foot around her ankle and pulls, she finally falls and the poker lands on the carpet. But while the woman falls towards the firepit, she doesn't topple in. He grunts as he reaches for the metal before the woman can, letting the woman hit him as he gives her leverage so he can get the weapon. She curses him but he can't hear anything, the words she's saying only sounding like white noise to his ears. He grabs the fire poker, he can feel the heat of it burning his hand slightly, but the pain isn't realized.
With the metal in hand, he checks her nose with his shoulder and he thinks he hears something crack, but he ignores it and tips his body forward, her fingers brushing the fire grate for a second before she repositions herself. She's still talking and he still can't hear a word. He can only focus on how the metal feels in his hand and how, for once in his fifteen years of living, that he's finally winning against the woman. He finally feels powerful. A being worth more than pressed under the woman's thumb.
The metal is warm in his hands, but he leans against the woman more, gritting his teeth when he finally feels her talons pierce his own skin once again, like they have for all these years. It just fuels his anger more.
He holds up the fire poker while he's on top of the woman, grinding his teeth as she tries to get him off.
He doesn't know how but for the first time in years he finally overpowers her but he feels like only a spectator in the event, he doesn't feel the glee he once assumed he would. He gets her to stop attacking his arms and legs enough for him to properly position the pointed metal, and when she goes back to drawing his blood, he stabs it into her eye.
There is a little resistance at first, but then he feels a pop and there's some sort of goo that starts to flow down her face, clear before it mixes with blood. He doesn't pay attention to how it sizzles in the heat.
He thinks the woman screams but his vision gets darker and he can't care, he feels her claw at his arms before she's somehow restrained. He won't lose this, not after the years of abuse and harm done to both him and his sister, the girl who he just had to watch get brutalized by the woman in front of him.
"Brûler les démons." He says, and pushes the burning metal further into the woman's eye socket.
The smell of burning flesh fills his nostrils. He was too far away to smell his own sister burning, but he's so close to the woman that it's all around him, he's surrounded and He doesn't think he knows how to feel. So he pushes in again, he thinks he hits more resistance, but it breaks easily and suddenly the woman slumps back, neck pressed into the fire gate by his own weight and he thinks he can see the tips of her hair catching fire.
When he gets up he leaves the metal protruding from her skull and instead moves the fire guard, moving it out of the way so he can situate the woman's body half in the fire. He hopes that the extravagant dresses she always wears, even now as blood drips from her face, catches fire and that it spreads to the rest of the building.
But he can't help but notice the fire has dimmed considerably.
When he sticks the head and shoulders of the woman into the fireplace, letting the fire poker stay locked in her skull, he hopes it's enough fuel to keep it going until the house burns down.
He sits there, staring at the body that was once the one who brought him into the world. Now he had brought her out of it. He never thought he would live to see her demise, but now he's the one who caused it.
He feels apathetic to it all, sitting on his calves, watching the flames getting fed, watching as the fire licks at the collar of the woman's dress and he thinks if God was real he's lost his chance into heaven but it's alright. He's going to welcome hell with open arms.
He hears a whimper from across the room and he thinks he feels his neck snap from how quickly he looks over to what made the noise. He watches as his sister's breathing picks up and she whines again, shaking her head in her muddled state. Her eyes are still closed and she's visibly shaking, even he can tell from across the room.
He dashes to her side, leaning over her on his knees and his eyes are focused on her and nothing else. He doesn't know what to do, he's never been the one to clean their wounds, it's always what she's done, picking up the pieces of both of them and gluing them back together and yelling at him all the while.
So he tries to make her feel better, something that used to be his job, but now he feels rusty and out of practice.
He picks her up as gently as he knows how, and pauses when she whines and blood sluggishly dripping from her eyes. His throat constricts and he sets her in his lap, not removing her from his arms. His own tears drip down his face.
He tries to talk to her, like he used to when they were younger, but all that would come out of his mouth was, "Tout va bien maintenant, c'est fini, tu vas t'en remettre, on va bien." Over and over and over again. The adrenaline leaves his body now that she's in his arms.
He can see the gray of bone from where her cheek should be.
"Tout va bien maintenant."
The burned flesh that he should be used to seeing.
"C'est fini."
But it's not the same when it's someone else's skin who's burned.
"Tu vas t'en sortir."
His own burn scars ache along with hers.
"On va bien."
He closes his eyes and tries to think of something comforting, but he doesn't have a place he can call home, not when every place he's ever been in has been controlled by their parents or by the supposed merciful God above. So he thinks of a nameless meadow, a place with flowers that will make her feel better, a place where it's no longer dry and hot, where it's cool and the grass doesn't scratch against skin. He thinks of a clearing hidden away with a river and trees surrounding it and leans back.
He pulls his sister closer and hears her whimper and her breath hitch, but in the dark corner he's pulled them into, away from the flames that have started to seep into the room and catch on the carpet, he feels himself slip away, but he can't slip away if his relationship with his sister is still broken, he can't leave when she's still in pain.
He still slips away, his body ignoring his mind, but he still feels her weight in his arms despite the cold that surrounds them briefly.
He feels himself lay somewhere soft, different from the cold hard floors of the house, and the sound of running water disorients him for the second he's conscience but he still lets darkness drag him under and into a bliss-less sleep.
-
Sirius wakes up in an unknown place and he doesn't know anything.
Well, that may be an exaggeration, but he feels lost, out of place and out of time. The room he's in is bright, a light blue, and the bed feels soft on wounds that he can't remember getting, the window is big but he can't see through it, every time he tries to focus on it his eyes forcibly move away. He doesn't understand why it's so bright because last time he remembered it was...
He's actually not sure what time of day it was last time he was awake. Or the date. Or the season. It's all blank. Gone. Or perhaps it was never there in the first place.
He turns over, looking at the drawers and doors before he focuses on the bed next to his own.
His brother lays there, breathing softly with bandages over the side of his face.
Sirius frowns, he doesn't remember him getting hurt.
He tries to think of how it happened but all he gets in return is a headache. He clutches his head and groans at the sudden sharp pain. He can't remember. He doesn't know anything except that his name is Sirius and the person beside him is his brother. That they're twins born in autumn.
But their exact birthday doesn't come to him, he can't quite figure out what autumn means, he doesn't remember any parents, where they were before, why they're here now. It all eludes him.
But he sits up, groans when his own injuries and bandages become known to him. He still moves to sit on the other bed with a slight limp, watching his brother's chest move up and down and he doesn't understand why it makes him feel better than the confusion that he felt before.
His eyes flick back up to the bandages resting on his brother's face, looking at how it wraps across only one side and covers an eye and he wishes he knew what caused it. All he knows is that it makes him feel awful and sick to see it.
Sirius reaches out unconsciously, petting his brother's head and feeling the difference between the short hair and... something else he can't remember, that makes him feel bewildered but he can't tell why, and the bandage. The sight of the bandage makes the cluster of emotions he's feeling worse.
His brother groans and bats Sirius' hand away.
"Leave me alone."
The hand that pushed away his own is shaking, and his brother's voice sounds sore and wrung out and Sirius doesn't know why that makes his chest hurt.
He ignores the boy though, and ignoring the stinging in his shoulder and hands and the aching everywhere else, he forcibly moves the other boy so he can squeeze into the small bed next to him. The other boy grumbles but allows himself to be moved and once settled Sirius just watches.
His brother, unlike how Sirius woke up, isn't underneath the covers of the bed, but instead rested on top. Sirius looks at the bandage on his lower stomach before quickly looking away. He didn't know why the sight made him ill, why he felt the need to hover around his brother like a simple gust of wind could kill the other, but he doesn't think about it too much. He can't. Anytime he tries, the sharp stabbing headache hits him again, so he just stares.
His brother doesn't say anything and so it just stays like that, him sleeping, or at least feigning sleep, while Sirius watches over him like a hawk simply because he feels like if he doesn't the world will come crumbling down around him for a reason unknown.
Sirius falls back asleep like that, squished next to his brother and unable to remember anything except his own name.
__
James hates the attic, it was official. It was dusty and creepy and somehow cold and moist at the same time. There were trinkets from past demi-gods and monsters and actual gods and he was positive that most of it was covered in some sort of mold. All this stuff could be in museums and yet it was in some old attic that had never gotten cleaned.
And don't get him started on the corpse sitting on a stool in the corner.
Okay he's being dramatic, it's more like a mummy wearing hippy clothes that he's sure she didn't actually die in. It is still creepy. It's even worse when he has to get close, to see the yellowed bandages contrasting horribly with the beads and tie-dye shirt that he's sure was once bright and eye-catching but is now covered in dust, sun bleached, and dull. He almost doesn't want to come any closer, but he knows he has to. He has a quest to ask for and figure out.
He stands in front of the corpse and he's... lost. James has never had too much experience talking to a dead woman and expecting an answer. What if he asks the wrong thing and it just spews out something completely different then the quest that Dumbledore is convinced that he has to go on? It's so stressful for him. He feels himself sweating, but he swears it's not actually him, it's just the moisture in the air, definitely.
He takes a deep breath to gather his confidence but just ends up coughing due to the dust. He shoves his face into his elbow and his eyes water. It takes far too long for him to collect himself because he's hacking out a lung. He also doesn't necessarily want to talk to a corpse.
When he looks back up to the mummy, with tears still watering in his eyes he swears it moved his head to look at him. He stares at the covered eye sockets. He could have sworn she was facing the wall, but now she isn't, she's looking at him and a shiver runs down his spine. He glances to the attic window, looking at the blue skies that are distorted slightly due to grime before deciding that he's been too much of a wimp. and that he needs to do what he always tells Peter whenever the other tries to talk to a girl and grow a pair. He's been in here too long for comfort anyways.
"What-" His voice cracks and he cringes but continues on. Nothing happens if he says it doesn't, "am I looking for?"
The mummy continues to look at him despite the lack of eyes and he thinks he did end up saying the wrong thing and that maybe this isn't a fetch quest like most other quests he's been told about have been before. Her jaw suddenly unlocks with a crack. James takes a startled step back, eyes growing wide as green smoke starts flowing from what was once her ears and her now open mouth. He takes another step back, almost tripping on a broken shield as the smoke turns itself into a snake. The eyes somehow glow and when its tongue flicks in the air he can somehow hear words. The words rattle around his head instead of the room they are in.
"In the Desert Oasis magic runs wild."
The snake disappears and in its place his mom stands in front of a counter while his step dad watches her cook on the other side. His mom opens her mouth but instead of her voice it's the one from before that comes out, scratched and distorted.
"The chess pieces reign,
Where only one God resides,
King's swords cost lives instead of coin,
A deadly price for a deadly game."
His mom stops talking, but his step dad opens his mouth instead and continues whatever riddle the Spirit of Delphi is giving James. The voice of the Oracle still makes his head ache no matter who is pictured talking.
"Lost dreams will follow you home,
But will leave behind what is loved."
And that is all James gets before the green mist starts to dissipate and he feels like he cannot move. What the fuck did that mean? What will leave something behind? Him? Someone else? The fucking thing that'll apparently follow him home?
He's pulled out of his stupor when he hears the sharp clack of the jaw from the mummy closing. He takes a step forward, eyes wide as he tries to get a few more answers.
"What do you mean?!" He hears his voice crack again but he ignores it, "Pawns? What gets left behind? Who?"
The only answer given to James was silence, the corpse back to being slumped over in the seat like it had never even moved, like it was truly dead despite what just happened. James bites his lip and sighs at the silence, but even he can tell that he won't get anything more. So he stops, he climbs down the ladder and exits the Big House.
Peter rushes up to him and Remus follows, hands in his pockets but the worry on Peter's face reflects on his own anyway.
Peter is panting when he reaches James and Remus leans against one of the porch pillars.
"So?" Peter asks. "How did it go? What happened? What did she say?" Peter's words were quick and piled together, but James has known him since they were children so it was easy to unsort all the questions. He stopped biting his lip and smiled at his two friends, putting forward all his positivity at being chosen for a quest for the first time.
"Well lads," He says, and Remus rolls his eyes but let's James continue, "It seems we are going searching."
Peter stops looking so worried, leans on the handrail and nods, biting his own knuckle, "What are we going to be looking for?" He asks and before James can answer, Remus cuts in.
"Or do you not know?" Remus' eyebrows are raised and James groans, rolling his eyes like Remus is wrong when he isn't. James won't let him know that though, it'll fuel his ego.
But at the end of the day Remus is never wrong. It would be annoying if it didn't come in handy so often. It's probably a child of Athena thing.
"Of course I know what we're looking for!" James lies, and he's about to continue bullshitting his way to an answer when Dumbledore walks up from the strawberry fields and James thanks the gods because he's saved from dealing with Remus' bullying.
However, Dumbledore doesn't seem happy, or he's at least worried as he walks up to James.
"Did she say anything?" The centaur asked and James nods. The two end up staring at each other for a few seconds before the lightbulb one can practically see clicks on inside James' head.
"Oh! Did you want to know?" He asks and Dumbledore nods. His two friends lean in as James recounts what the Oracle said in the attic as best as he can. It's not the complete prophecy, James knows, but it's what he can remember after focusing so hard on that one segment because he still has no idea what that could even possibly mean. He knows prophecies are supposed to be vague but he feels like he was just given a pop quiz made with invisible ink or something else absolutely ridiculous. But it must mean something to Dumbledore, and when he looks over to his friends it looks like Remus might have a clue of what to do. Peter, like James, also looks clueless.
After he's finished recounting Dumbledore nods and looks at the boys in front of him, "I imagine you three would like to go together." Peter nods quickly and James almost feels bad for his neck while Remus shrugs but still gives a short nod in agreement.
"I couldn't imagine going without them." James says to Dumbledore and he tries to make himself sound as serious as he possibly can. The centaur nods in agreement and James is glad he doesn't have to defend himself, "I'd like you three to be on your way tomorrow morning." He says, "Take the rest of the day off to pack and discuss, and I imagine McGonagall would like to see you three boys as well. I wish you three the best of luck." and then the older man walks into the Big House and closes the door.
Remus frowns, looking at the door confused, but James doesn't dwell on it for too long, grabbing his two friends by the elbows and dragging them to the dining pavilion. This is James' first quest after all, a big day for him. Well, actually, it's all of their first quest so actually it's more so a big day for all of them. Even if James is still so confused about every part of the quest offered to him.
He turns to Remus when he sits down, and looks at the scars littering his friend's face from his time before he was a year rounder.
"Are you sure you want to come? You don't have to say yes just because I assumed you would be coming along, I won't mind if you tell me to fuck off." James says and Remus laughs at him as a response. Sure, it's more like Remus just breathed harshly from his nose in amusement, but honestly, fuck him, James gets laughed at for thinking of his friends and this is what he gets? He sees how it is.
James glares at Remus, "You know what? Fuck you, never mind, forget I asked. You're coming no matter what now."
"I just think it's funny you'd ask me if I was sure when without me you two would be lost and end up dying of something stupid." Remus says and just for that James shoves him. Peter laughs when Remus only moves the slightest bit and James has decided he doesn't need his friends for this anymore.
"I wouldn't be lost! I'd know exactly where to go!"
"Really?" Remus asks, "Where would we go?"
James still glares at Remus but glances to Peter, looking for help, but Peter shakes his head and holds up his hands, "Don't bring me into this."
James gives up and lets his head thunk on to the table and sighs, "Fine, where are we going?" He grumbles into the concrete. He hears Remus hum and he knows the other boy is pleased about winning whatever argument they were having.
"Las Vegas. That's where we probably need to go."
"Las Vegas?"