Chapter Text
Somewhere in Northern Italy, a boy sat at a window, reading a book and waiting for his brother’s car to pull into his driveway.
It had been three years since Regulus Black had last seen his brother Sirius, or anyone in his brother’s life. Three years, during which both of them had left the abusive home that was their childhood and lost contact before regaining at again just a year prior.
For the past two years Regulus had been staying with his two best friends, Barty Crouch Jr and Evan Rosier in an old house in the Italian countryside. The house was an old property he found when looking through them one day several years ago, and he’d known since then that he wanted to live there one day.
It was beautiful. The walls were stone, the floors wooden, the glass windows stained, the window boxes filled with colourful flowers, the clear water in the pool outside sparkled under the sunlight and brightly coloured fruits decorated the trees in the back garden. It was a small slice of paradise that he and his two friends had made for themselves away from the colourless and uptight childhoods they’d all had in.
All three of them came from rich, influential families in England. They’d all been forced in front of cameras from early ages, forced to learn how to smile when they wanted to punch and talk when they wanted to scream. That was why they were across the continent from that life, building their own lives and doing things their way.
Evan’s twin sister, Pandora, had moved with them, as well as her girlfriend, but they’d moved out of the big house and into their own small one in the nearby village. Everybody else from their old lives, including Sirius, was forgotten. Until last summer.
****
It was a particularly hot day, and Regulus had was in the pool while Evan and Barty were off somewhere, probably fucking, when his phone went off. He begrudgingly pulled himself out of the water to sit on the edge so he could check his phone, expecting it to be a text from Barty asking him to get him something or other. But it wasn’t.
Regulus nearly dropped his phone from shock when he saw an instagram notification saying: sirius.padfoot03 has requested to follow you. He just stared at his phone for a minute, then another, before he slowly unlocked his phone and opened Instagram. Then he went to his notifications and clicked on the profile that popped up in ‘follow requests’.
Sure enough, it was his brother’s account. It was a public one, and he somehow had just over fifteen thousand followers. Regulus scrolled down to the photos and clicked on the first one. It was a photo of Sirius and a tall man with curly hair kissing on a beach, Sirius' long curly hair blowing around their faces and his sunglasses pushed on top of his head. Sirius was shirtless in the photo, and Regulus could see a tattoo on his arm, the Canis Major constellation with a moon in the middle, cradled by a set of antlers underneath with rat footprints running under a set of letters; R P S J.
Covering his right shoulder there was what looked like a wolf howling at the moon. It was artfully done and seemed to cover most of his shoulder blade. The other boy, who Regulus was assuming was Sirius’ boyfriend, was wearing a shirt but Remus could see a similar tattoo on his arm, only without the antlers, footprints and letters. Regulus scrolled down a bit and clicked on the caption.
Beach day with my love <3 @rj.moony photo by @jf.prongs
Then Regulus decided to click on the comments.
jf.prongs
I am a brilliant photographer thank you for singing my praises @so.padfoot :P
so.padfoot
@jf.prongs always, prongsy <3
rj.moony
Why do you always have to post us kissing?
so.padfoot
@rj.moony Because, moony my love, there are not enough photos of hot gay men kissing in the world!
marly.kinnon
Looking good! Careful @so.padfoot I might steal ur man
so.padfoot
@marly.kinnon never, mckinnon, he’s mine go shag ur gf
marly.kinnon
@so.padfoot okay fine I won’t. @dork.dowes running to you🏃🏃
Regulus couldn’t help but smile a bit at the teasing comments between the friends as he scrolled to the next post. This one was a set of six photos, clearly from a party. Everyone in the photos were dressed in tight, revealing clothes and most had glitter and eyeliner on. There were colourful lights flashing, as each picture had a different lighting colour.
The first photo in the set was of Sirius and a blonde girl doing shots, with a half empty bottle of vodka next to them. The second was of Sirius’ boyfriend chugging a bottle of beer in the middle of the group. He was the only one wearing normal clothing, blue jeans and an oversized knitted jumper. The third photo was of Sirius again, being given a piggyback and spun around by a tall, dark skinned man wearing glasses. Both of them had wide grins on their faces and looked to be laughing as well. It made Regulus smile to see his brother so happy.
The fourth photo was a group photo of seven people, a few of them holding drinks or bottles, and all of them had their arms thrown around each other's shoulders. The fifth was a video of the blonde girl and a dark skinned girl with braided hair dancing on a table, then making out while several people cheered.
The last one was another video, this time of Sirius and the blonde one again, only Sirius had replaced the other girl on the table and he and the blonde were singing Bohemian Rhapsody, alternating the lines as if they had rehearsed it, then they launched into air guitaring before the video ended.
There were six people tagged in the caption; @jf.prongs, @rj.moony, @p.wormy, @marly.kinnon, @dork.dowes, @mary.mac The most amazing night ever<3<3
The comment section was slightly funnier than the last one.
marly.kinnon
@so.padfoot you fell off the table after the end of the last clip lmao it was so funny
so.padfoot
@marly.kinnon you choked on a shot and sprayed it all over your gf
marly.kinnon
@so.padfoot 🖕 never speak of that again
so.padfoot
@marly.kinnon okay okay luv you marls <3
jf.prongs
I slayed my cover of dancing queen, I will accept no slander on it
rj.moony
@jf.prongs okay.
mary.mac
Sirius sounded like a screeching cat during starman, but Remus sounded beautiful @rj.moony please sing more🙏🙏
rj.moony
@mary.mac no.
so.padfoot
@mary.mac hands off my man, hoe.(affectionate)
jf.prongs
@so.padfoot I will be stealing your slutty top btw :D
so.padfoot
@jf.prongs absolutely not! Hands off! It's mine!
Underneath the comments from the group there were a few comments from followers, mostly by girls thirsting over Sirius, who was clearly gay and taken. A few of them were told this and then just got annoyed that Sirius wasn’t single.
After a while of scrolling through the photos and videos posted by Sirius, Regulus went back to the top of his profile and saw a TikTok account name; sirius_black03. Without really thinking about why, Regulus opened TikTok and searched the username and found the account. This one had considerably more followers than his Instagram one, and seemed to consist mostly of dancing and lip syncing videos, as well as a few of him at the gym or with friends. Regulus was surprised that he had over one hundred thousand followers from this, but he could also understand why.
Sirius was good looking, it was a fact. Everyone in the Black family was. They all had dark, curly hair, pale skin and mostly blue-grey eyes. Apart from Regulus, who had blue-green eyes. So, it wasn’t surprising that Sirius had a high follower account mostly from his looks.
Switching back to Instagram, Regulus accepted the follow request and followed him back. Then he turned off his phone and went inside to find Barty and Evan to distract him from going and blocking his brother.
That evening, when Regulus checked his phone for the first time in hours, he saw a text on instagram from his brother’s account. With shaking hands he unlocked the phone and clicked on the notification.
so.padfoot
Regulus! Hi! It’s Sirius, I've been trying to find you for a while now, how are you?
ra.black
Hello, Sirius.
****
From that day there had been semi-regular contact at first, then they were texting almost everyday, as well as calling at least twice a week if they could. Then, six months ago, Regulus had invited Sirius to his house for the summer. Which lead to today, waiting for him to arrive.
Sirius was bringing his boyfriend and best friend, Remus Lupin and James Potter, to stay in the house as well, as there was enough space. The rest of their friends had been offered to come as well, but they had to find other accommodation as the house wasn’t big enough for an additional four people. Luckily, there was a nearby house for renting for holidays that was big enough for the other four to stay in. Originally, Sirius had brought up the idea of the rest of their friends coming as well, because a few of them had known each other in school and would love to reunite, but Regulus had found the house for them and offered for his house to become the main hangout area during the day.
In total, there would be twelve of them, Regulus, Evan and Barty lived there, Lily and Pandora lived in the local village, Sirius, Remus and James were staying with the three boys, and Peter, Mary, Marlene and Dorcas were staying in the rented house.
Regulus, Barty, Evan and Pandora had all been friends with Dorcas at school, but only Pandora still had contact with her until recently. Lily had been close with Marlene, Mary, Remus, Peter, Sirius and James at school, but had moved to Italy with Pandora when she moved with Regulus, Barty and Evan. And Regulus, obviously, was brothers with Sirius.
So, while he was happy to be seeing his brother for the first time in three years and Dorcas for the first time in over two, he was nervous, and a bit scared. He was different from the quiet boy who would lash out at them when he got too angry. He had changed. Now, he was still quieter than his friends were, but he was more confident. On a night out, if he wanted to, he could get anyone he wanted. But he never did, he never wanted to.
He’d made out with girls in clubs and at parties before, but it hadn’t been some big life changing thing for him. He just wasn’t really interested in kissing or sex. That was normal, there were people who weren’t interested in relationships or sex at all. He was probably one of those people, and that was fine. It had to be.
A car turned onto the driveway outside, and Regulus was ripped from his thoughts as he scrambled to put his book away, marked at the correct page, and go downstairs to greet his brother, and his brother’s boyfriend and best friend. It would be fine, he could do it, he could do it.
The car doors slammed shut just as Regulus opened the front door. He didn’t get a chance before Sirius cried, “Regulus!” and launched himself at his brother. Regulus stumbled back a step as his brother crashed into him, embracing him tightly.
Once the initial shock of Sirius being here. Regulus brought his arms around his brother and tucked his face into his neck like he used to when they were younger, even though he was almost too tall to do so now.
“Hi, Siri.” Regulus whispered after a few seconds. Sirius laughed wetly and pulled away, wiping tears from his eyes. He blinked a few times before he hugged Regulus again quickly, then turned to introduce him to the man standing behind him.
“Regulus, this is Remus, my boyfriend.” Sirius smiled at him as he nudged him forwards.
“Hello, Regulus.” Remus spoke softly despite his deep and slightly rough voice and held out his hand.
“Nice to meet you, Remus. Out of all the people in the world you chose to date my brother, really?” Regulus asked, getting a chuckle out of Remus as he dropped his hand.
“He chose me more than I chose him.” Remus said while staring right at Sirius, who blushed before leaning up to kiss Remus quickly on the lips. Just as Regulus was about to say something about PDA and that being his brother there was a loud complaint from the car.
“Fucking hell, Pads. Did you have to take this much stuff? Your bags weigh a ton.” Sirius laughed loudly before grabbing Regulus’s arm and dragging him over to the car.
“Sorry, Prongs, but I gotta look good so suffer.” Sirius replied sweetly. Just as ‘Prongs’ was gonna go to retort back Sirius spoke again. “Anyway! James, this is my brother Regulus. Regulus, this is my best friend James.” Regulus already hated this man, whoever he was. He’d taken his brothe- fucking hell. Regulus' previous thoughts were abruptly cut off as the most gorgeous human Regulus had ever seen walked around the car and into Regulus' eyeline.
“Oh, hi Reg! I’m James!” James didn’t offer his hand for a handshake like Remus did, instead he decided to step forwards and hug Regulus who he’d literally just met and, oh fucking hell, he smelled good, infuriatingly good despite being on a plane for two hours and in a car for another couple.
“Don’t call me Reg. Hello, James.” Then Regulus promptly spun on his heel and went back inside the house before he did something stupid. As he was storming through the house towards the pool Evan and Barty emerged from the living room.
“Hey, Reg. Are they here?” Evan asked as they stopped walking.
“Yeah, I just said hi.”
“Ah, okay, you need to go and freak out over something, got it. Bye!” Barty said, then dragged Evan towards where Sirius, Remus and James were still unpacking the car.
Regulus continued to the pool, changing into his swimming trunks and stripping off his t-shirt as there was no one else outside. He smoothly dived into the deep end before resurfacing and starting to swim lengths of the pool, letting the familiar small waves of water and the movement of his body clear his mind as he focused on swimming.
Right arm, left arm, right arm, breath, left arm, right arm, left arm, breath-
Regulus’ peaceful swimming and concentration was interrupted by someone jumping into the pool, disturbing the water. The first person was followed by another, and Regulus looked towards the deep end to see his brother and James splashing around like three year olds. Regulus shot the two of them a glare as he pulled himself over the edge next to his towel and dried his hair a bit with it.
Just as he finished and put the towel down, someone sat next to him. He turned his head and saw Remus, who wasn’t shirtless like Sirius and James, but instead was wearing swimming trunks and a short black vest top. Regulus noticed a set of scars, like claws, going down Remus’ left arm, staring at his shoulder and ending just past his elbow. They were faded and clearly old, but Regulus still felt disrespectful staring at them so he moved his gaze away from them.
“Sorry about them, they’ve been cooped up all day, they have energy.” Remus waved a hand towards the two men now diving into the pool from the side.
“It’s fine, I have the pool much longer than they do.” Regulus sighed, then heaved himself onto his feet. “I’m gonna get a drink, do you want anything?” He asked Remus as he picked up his towel and dumped it onto one of the chairs around the pool.
“I’ll come with you, what do you have?” Remus asked as he got to his feet and followed Regulus back inside the house.
“The usual, wine, lemonade, peach lemonade, probably champagne somewhere, water even though it’s not the best. What do you want?” Regulus led the way into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Sure enough, there were several bottles of various red wines and a bottle of champagne, as well as a few bottles of various homemade lemonades.
Remus grabbed a random bottle of wine, and Regulus nodded approvingly when he read the label.
“That’s a local one, made just forty minutes away. It’s good.” Regulus got several wine glasses and the champagne bucket Barty insisted they had, so they could keep bottles cold outside. He filled the bucket with ice and put the wine in it, then he handed it to Remus. The two returned outside and sat back where they were, glasses of wine in their hands as they watched their respective friends being stupid in the pool, Barty and Evan had now joined the chaos, and a water fight had started.
Regulus relaxed for the first time that day as he sipped his wine and chatted with Remus, he was happy to discover they shared many interests, which led to several long debates about various books and authors, then musicians, then Remus ranted about chocolate so Regulus went and got him a bar made locally by his friend and her wife. Remus proceeded to ask for more, which led to a promised visit to their shop.
A little while later Regulus got fully out of the pool and changed into some comfortable clothes to start making dinner, pizza. The dough was kindly made by his elderly neighbour, Adelina. Her and her husband, Marco, had been incredibly kind to the three boys when they had first moved into the house. The couple also tended to the garden and fruit trees, as they had for many years and had been sad at the possibility that they wouldn’t be able to anymore, so Regulus, Barty and Evan had offered to let them continue, which they had been happy about.
Adelina had offered to teach them how to cook so they could look after themselves properly, as all of them had been raised with cooks making all their meals. She had been a wonderful and patient teacher, and sometimes Marco had helped them make a meal for the five of them. In a very short time the two of them felt like parents, or perhaps grandparents, to the three boys. They were considered family, even if nobody said it out loud.
“Ah, Regulus. Here is the dough for you, as well as some of my sauce, from a family recipe.” Adelina smiled and hugged him after she passed over the bowl of dough and the jar of tomato sauce.
“Thank you, Ade, you really didn’t have to.” Regulus returned the hug with a smile, and kissed her on the cheek.
She simply waved him off as she left the kitchen. “Nonsense, nonsense. You enjoy that pizza and have a nice night with your brother. Ciao!” Then she left and Regulus shook his head while smiling to himself. He wasn’t complaining about getting pizza sauce to go on the dough, Adeline was magic at it and his would never compare.
“Evan, Barty, Sirius! Come and help make pizza!” Regulus shouted out the window towards the pool. Only a couple of minutes later four men came running into the kitchen, as James had followed them. Remus came in a few minutes later with two young women following him, one ginger and one blonde.
“Reg! I just saw Adeline and she told me she made pizza dough for us! I’m so excited she’s the best at it!” Pandora, the blonde one, spoke in a rush as she flung her arms around Regulus to hug him. “Oh! And I met Remus, he’s so kind I like him.” Pandora declared, releasing Regulus to turn and kiss Remus’ cheek.
“Panda, my love, maybe calm down a bit and introduce yourself to the other two.” Lily said, smiling fondly at her wife. Pandora smiled and bounced over to Sirius and James to talk to them. “Hi Regulus, it’s been a few days.” Lily embraced him as well as he laughed and replied, ”It’s been two, Lils.” Lily leaned back and brushed her curly red hair over her shoulder. “Whatever, still a few days.”
“Um, hello? What are we, chopped liver?” Barty asked from next to Reg. Lily rolled her eyes but moved to hug him, then Evan too.
“Hello Barty, Evan. Enjoying lying around doing nothing?” Lily asked jokingly, she already knew the answer to that.
Pandora had now apparently finished talking to, or more likely interrogating, Sirius and James, as she now jumped into her brother’s arms to give him a hug, then kissed Barty’s cheek before pulling away to wrap her arms around her wife.
“Are the other four friends here?” She asked from her place pressed against Lily’s side.
“No, not yet. Their accommodation isn’t open for another two days, they’ll be here then.” Evan responded to his sister. She smiled and nodded confirmingly.
“I thought we were making pizza?” Sirius asked, sounding confused.
“Yes, we are. Let’s get started.” Regulus cut the pizza into eight pieces and passed them out for everyone to make their own. It took a while, a few complaints and a table covered in flour, but eventually there were eight pizzas made, then the toppings were added before being added to the old wood fired oven in the kitchen. More wine was brought out and poured when the pizzas were finished and the group moved to the table outside to eat.
The evening passed quickly with glasses of wine, some music, a lot of talking and laughing, some staring at James when his shirt slipped open, Barty being pushed into the pool by Evan, and the general chaos a group of 20-21 year olds would make.
When Regulus collapsed into his bed that night he felt happier and more complete than he had in a long, long time. As he drifted off to sleep the last thing he thought of was a pair of warm, brown eyes.