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“Hey, Regulus, wake up. Can you hear me? Christ, you sleep like a log. Regulus? Regulus! Wake up!”
Sirius pushed a little too hard, and Regulus fell a little too fast. His eyes snapped open and he sucked in a breath of panic through his nose as he instinctively grasped his sheets, but they only came tearing down with him as he was jarred awake by the thud of hitting the hardwood floor.
“Sirius!” Regulus hissed as his older brother frantically apologized and attempted to detangle him from his linen mummification. With a bleary gaze he glanced up at the alarm clock on his bedside table to gather his bearings, still dazed from exhaustion. “It’s nearly three o’clock. What do you want?”
“Shh, I know, I know. Please just be quiet, okay? I need to ask you something.” Sirius took his younger brother’s hand into his own and pulled him up from the ground, assisting him back into bed before he took his own seat beside him.
Once his sheets were properly re-adjusted, Regulus could focus more properly on what Sirius was saying. “What is it, then? It must be important if it couldn’t wait until morning.”
Sirius nodded, fidgeting nervously and idly twiddling his thumbs as he slowly began to speak. “Right, well, it’s just that you always seem to be sort of wise about this stuff, so I wanted to ask you,” He paused, turning to face Regulus fully now. Regulus could see his apprehensive expression in the dim light that trickled in from beneath the blinds of the window. “How do I know if I’m… You know, in love?”
It took all that Regulus had to keep from erupting into a horrible fit of laughter, his eyes watering and nostrils burning from containing it. “You can’t be serious!” he blurted, covering his mouth to hide his grin. But Sirius took offense to his amusement and grimaced, preparing his stance to shove him off the bed again. “N-No no, wait!” he squeaked behind the stifled laughter, eyes growing wide as he held up his hands and flinched behind them. “I’m not laughing at you, Sirius, I’m just surprised , that’s all.”
“Why?” Sirius grumbled, crossing his arms as his lips formed a tight frown. It was obvious he felt really sensitive about this. Regulus leaned forward to comfort him by briefly placing a hand on his knee, but neither of them were particularly fond of familial affection so the gesture lasted only for a moment.
“Well, because I’m probably the last person you should be asking about what romance feels like. I’m aromantic.” There was still a smirk resting at the corner of his lip, but he tried to seem sincere in his words. “And asexual too, for that matter.”
The adjustment of his stance, now stiff and straightened, indicated that Sirius was not expecting that response. “Wait, really?” he asked, now shuffling closer to Regulus like when they were younger and would hide under the sheets to share forbidden candies swiped from their parents’ secret stash. “But I’ve read those sappy stories you write in that journal you keep hidden under your bed! You got a love poem published in the newspaper! You can’t tell me you don’t know what love is.”
“You’ve read my journal?” Regulus growled, cheeks radiating with the warmth of either embarrassment or anger.
“Well, yeah, one time it was sitting out at your writing desk when I was looking for a quill and, you know, it was just right there and it was open and—” Sirius spoke quickly, his face also flushing pink as his clumsy explanation spilled from his mouth. “—and the stories were just so good! I couldn’t put it down! The one about the prince and the princess, but the dragon guarding the castle actually is the princess in her non-human form? It was awesome! But I know, I know, invasion of privacy and all that, I should’ve told you and I’m sorry. But that’s besides the point, okay? I need your advice, so stop skirting it and spit it out.”
Making a mental note to give his brother a real tongue-lashing later, Regulus gathered himself with a deep breath and tried to properly explain. “Listen, I never said I don’t know what love is. I said that I’ve never felt romance. There’s a difference. And it’s true, that I haven’t felt it, and I don’t want to feel it. I simply have no interest in romance, for myself. It does make for a good story though.” Sirius was quiet now, thoughtful and attentive, and Regulus took that as a cue to keep going.
“I can’t tell you what romantic love feels like, Sirius, but I can tell you what love needs. Love is delicate and careful, but also clumsy and unyielding. With love, you need dedication. You need communication. You need trust. You have to understand yourself and what love means to you. You also have to know what love means to your partner, or partners. That way you can acknowledge all of the ways that your ideas of love are similar or different and communicate that. But most importantly, you need to be honest with yourself and be true to yourself. Your partner needs to love you , not the attractive mask you put on to try and seem more desirable.”
Then there was silence. The silence lingered for so long that Regulus nearly thought Sirius had fallen asleep, but finally Sirius began to speak.
“See, you always know what to say. I knew you would be able to give me some great advice!” Even in the near-darkness his grey eyes swirled with a combination of relief and contemplation, and his expression was a grateful one.
A compliment from him felt very strange, almost uncomfortable, like a tight-fitting shirt. But to distract himself, Regulus simply gave Sirius a mischievous half-smile and said smugly, “Don’t worry, I’m sure you and Remus will hit it off.”
Suddenly the boy who was usually known for being so smug and quick-witted was a blushing, stammering mess, unsure of whether to fold his arms across his chest or press them tightly to his sides or use them to fling a blanket over himself to hide. “ What? ” Sirius gasped, his voice an octave too high to be believable, “Who ever said anything about Remus?”
Regulus chuckled deep in his throat at Sirius’s flustered display, rolling his eyes and shaking his head despite the affectionate grin that parted his lips. With a nearly cat-like prowess, he expertly shoved Sirius out of his bed, to which Sirius responded with an exclamation of shock and a disgruntled groan as he hit the ground with a thump. Regulus’s smile was wide and sparkling even through the pre-dawn dark that enveloped his room as he spoke with a wicked satisfaction:
“I read it in your journal.”