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When Regulus was younger, Sirius was his hero. Knowing that he was not and would not ever be as smart or fiercely independent as Sirius ate him alive, an agony second only to knowing that he was letting his parents down in some obvious yet completely ineffable way. Sirius put himself between Regulus and pain whenever he could, and earned for his troubles what seemed at the time to be unending admiration.
It's odd to remember that now, woken up at 3 am for the fourth time this year by a drunken call and a text containing what is supposedly the address of a bar Sirius needs to be picked up from but is actually not any location known to man, so that Regulus has to not only peel himself out of bed but spend a solid five minutes trying to imagine what typographical mistakes he might make if he were a self-destructive alcoholic on the wrong side of a bottle of vodka. He searches the final product and is rewarded with the Google Street View of the exact kind of sketchy, run-down place Sirius favors in exactly the kind of bad neighborhood someone with as much money and as little discretion as he has should never, ever be.
When Regulus pulls up, Sirius is sitting upright (for a given definition of) against the front of the building, which isn't new, but there's someone with him, which actually isn't new either. What's worth noting is that they aren't all over each other. The other man has one hand in Sirius' hair, but more like he just finished making sure it didn't get vomited on than like they're in the throes of passion. Regulus rolls down his window and says, "No, your friend can't have a ride and no, he definitely can't crash on my couch." He's proud of the confidence with which he delivers this, and the particular scorn on friend, but Sirius just raises one eyebrow in the impeccable arch Regulus has always envied, because they both know Regulus will cave first.
Fortunately, the man lets go of Sirius' hair and strides across the pavement to shake Regulus' hand through the open window. "I don't need a ride. I just wanted to make sure he got home all right. It's nice to meet you. I'm James." James has a firm grip and smooth hands, and Regulus holds on a second longer than he needs to. He clearly isn't sober, but he carries it better than Sirius does. This is the only gay bar in town that Sirius hasn't been kicked out of, and that's because the owner is in love with him. Once the sentiment fades, or his husband and co-owner figures it out, Sirius will probably just have to move.
Right as Regulus is about to thank James for taking care of his brother, which is a completely absurd thing to have to say, James turns a bit pink and leans in, says slightly louder than he probably means to, "I was also wondering if you could pass my number on to him. His phone's died since he called you, and I'm worried he'd lose it if I wrote it down." He ruffles his hair, which is either a self-conscious gesture or an affectation meant to make him look roguishly attractive. Regardless, it makes Regulus smile, and James smiles back. "We were having a really good time before he overdid it."
"Right," Regulus says. He checks his watch and does some self-examination to determine whether he's too tired to let James in on the fact that this is how everyone feels about Sirius all the time. He is, and anyway, it would be very tacky to drop that bomb and then say that he'd still like James' number, personally.
Sirius is a needlessly belligerent drunk, which isn't particularly shocking but isn't any less annoying for its predictability. Regulus has gone through this routine with him dozens of times and never once has Sirius smiled, or thanked him, or even looked anything other than haughty and superior. James apparently merits a heretofor unseen display of manners: when he returns to where Sirius is sitting to help him up, he receives a smile and a decently-articulated thank you for his troubles instead of being told to fuck off.
Sirius is up most of the night vomiting, which means Regulus is up most of the night listening to him vomit, as the bathroom neighbors his room. It seems unjust that he grew up in such a loud, unpleasant household, but instead of adapting to it the way Sirius did, he's become weak and sensitive. He's trying to turn over a new leaf, be less soft. Part of this is that instead of sitting on the edge of his bathtub and offering Sirius cold water and ginger chews, he bangs on the wall, shouts, "Don't go to sleep on your back!" and sticks his head under a pillow to muffle the sound.
Regulus is up in time for work, but he calls out. It isn't, as Sirius constantly points out, like he actually has to work. He's just never been good at coming up with things to do. When they were younger, Sirius was the one who made up games for them to play and stories about their real parents who would come to get them eventually. Regulus just went along. A job he doesn't need is better than slowly melding to his bed, which is what he would do, or getting sloppy drunk on a Tuesday, which is what Sirius does.
He stares at James' number in his phone for an hour before getting up the courage to open a message, which itself takes an hour to craft. He lands on, "This is Regulus (Sirius' brother) from last night. I just wanted to thank you for looking out for him." He adds and deletes and adds and deletes a smiling emoticon.
James responds practically instantaneously. "haha np!! hes a good guy :) :)"
Regulus spends several minutes trying to decide if this merits a reply. He doesn't think it does, particularly, but he would like it to. Before he can come to terms with a definite no, his phone buzzes again. "i just wanted to clear something up. im not gay, i just thought sirius and i had a cool platonic sort of connection." Regulus hasn't even had time to process this obvious lie--Sirius doesn't have or seem to want friends--when James texts a follow-up. "just wanted to make sure we're all on same page. def still pass on my number lol." A pause, and another buzz. "please."
Sirius is still resolutely unconscious on the couch. Regulus considers rolling him off and then feigning innocence, but Sirius will figure it out and make him pay somehow. Instead, he opens the bathroom door and then slams it shut over and over until Sirius groans. It's sort of cathartic, as Regulus is dissatisfied with both his brother and his upstairs neighbor who's constantly stomping around. "Loud," Sirius says, his voice muffled against the upholstery.
"Sorry." Regulus doesn't feel particularly bad because Sirius somehow doesn't get hangovers, and also because he deserves it. He shoves Sirius' feet onto the floor so that he can sit down. "James gave me his number to give to you."
"James?" Sirius asks. He thinks he's a better liar than he is. His voice is too carefully modulated now, his face too pointedly blank. When Regulus doesn't give him anything to play off of, he adds, "Oh, with the hair?"
Regulus nods. "He says he just wants to be friends though." The mask slips, and Regulus can see that Sirius is disappointed, which is a surprise. James is clearly better than Sirius' usual class of man, but what is clear to Regulus and what is clear to Sirius are often two very different things. "He says he's straight."
"Oh," Sirius laughs. "You had me going, you dick. He's definitely not straight." He hauls himself upright with the groan of somone much older than twenty-four and goes off to look for his phone so that he can take down James' information.
Nearly six months have passed since Regulus last tried to get Sirius to change his ways, which means it's about time for him to screw up his courage, get his feelings hurt, and then go back to pretending everything is fine. He says so that Sirius will be able to hear him from the other room, "I've been thinking--"
"Not this again!" Sirius slams things around in the bathroom for a couple minutes to express his displeasure and then returns looking furious. "I'm fine."
Regulus stares at his coffeetable, which is covered in rings from Sirius not using coasters. "This isn't normal. You should go to therapy."
"Maybe you should go to therapy. I'm not the one who's been fired from two different jobs for crying in the stairwell instead of fucking filing or whatever. Didn't that one woman think the office was haunted?" Regulus clenches his fist and focuses on the strain in his tendons instead of all of the hurtful things he would like to say. He doesn't turn his head, because then he will see Sirius looking proud of himself, as if there's any real skill in being good at hurting someone you've known practically your entire life. "I think that's fucking abnormal," Sirius says, and so Regulus stands, and walks to his bedroom, and locks himself inside.
Some time later, he smells something burning. It seems beyond Sirius to burn his apartment down out of spite, but not so deeply beyond him to throw a lit match and some mail or a curtain into the sink, so Regulus goes out to check. The kitchen is full of dirty bowls, the counter covered in flour. Sirius is scraping something blackened and unappealing from a frying pan. "The first one never turns out," he says, his voice tight with false cheer.
Regulus should say, he knows, that Sirius actually has to speak the words I'm sorry for it to count. Instead, he sits down at the table and watches Sirius mangle several more of what he realizes are meant to be pancakes before finally getting the hang of it, sort of. "As if you've ever cooked anything before in your life."
"Even Picasso once had to pick up a paintbrush for the first time." Sirius doesn't turn back to the pan until Regulus cracks a smile, which is how he ends up setting off the smoke detector. As they're fanning at the ceiling, Sirius says, "Sorry," in exactly the kind of half-embarrassed, half-obligatory way a selfish person might apologize for triggering someone else's smoke detector while making an inedible breakfast they didn't ask for. Regulus decides to take it as a blanket apology anyway, and to accept it with grace.