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"You sure about this?" Regulus asked nervously.
Sirius gave him a flat look. "It's a bit late to change your mind now," he said, gesturing to the cave around them. Crossing the water hadn't been easy since the boat was designed to only carry one, and now, standing in front of the basin with the necklace visible on the bottom was kind of the worst time to decide that he didn't want to do this anymore. Their goal was in sight; even if Regulus decided to leave, it would mean that Sirius had to try this on his own. He would prefer not to try that, but he couldn't, in good conscience, walk away.
"Not that. I just meant- you're better at thinking on your feet. Maybe I should be the one to drink it."
Sirius shook his head. "No way. You know more about Voldemort and what's going on with the Death Eaters than I do. If the potion is designed to kill the drinker, we'd still need you alive and well."
"You're not going to die from drinking it."
"You know that for sure?" Sirius asked, tying back his hair. He had no idea how this was going to go, and he didn't want his hair in his face for it.
"Are you suicidal and I'm just now learning about it?" Regulus asked, looking alarmed.
"For fuck's sake, Regulus. Take a deep breath, and calm down."
"I can't believe you are telling someone to calm down, and if there were ever a moment to panic, I should think you'd agree that now is a fitting time."
"Panicking is going to make it hard for you to think. Just remember: as soon as you can, grab the necklace and get out."
"I'm not leaving you behind."
"I'll be fine. I'm not planning on dying in a cave in the middle of nowhere," he said with a smirk.
Regulus wasn't the least bit comforted by that. He knew Sirius was lying-- he wouldn't be fine.
Sirius took a deep breath and picked up the cup sat on the side of the basin. "Here goes nothing," he muttered.
Regulus felt like he was in some state of shock. His body was moving automatically, but it's like his brain was frozen in place. He'd seen Sirius have all sorts of emotional outbursts-- from angry and screaming at their parents to silent and shaking. This was a first for seeing him cry so hard he couldn't breathe. Sirius had been fine drinking the liquid at first, but the effects were cumulative. He got a little choked up after a few cups, and by the end, Regulus had been helping him drink it. He hadn't wanted to, but Sirius had figured out about halfway through that he wouldn't be able to finish all on his own.
It had been a steady spiral downwards for Sirius, but that didn't make seeing the end result any easier. He was a wreck, and it wasn't getting any better. Regulus had been sure that it wouldn't kill him at first, but after seeing him vomit because of how hard he was crying, he started to doubt it. He needed to get Sirius help, and he needed to do it fast. He couldn't just walk into St. Mungo's after betraying the Dark Lord with his brother in tow and expect for nothing bad to happen.
That left him with one option-- or at least one option that he could currently think of.
Personally, he didn't trust Potter. He didn't know him, and he didn't care to. But he needed help-- both with the necklace and with Sirius-- and there was no one better than Potter for that.
Sirius was heavy. Regulus hadn't thought about it before, but Sirius was taller than him and almost twice as big around. Regulus had never felt like a bloody stick before, but he was wearing himself out trying to drag him around. It was something of a miracle that he hadn't fallen over, to be honest. He landed with a grimace on Potter's front stoop, then kicked the door-- he couldn't take an arm away from Sirius for long enough to knock unless he wanted to drop him. He waited a couple seconds, then kicked the door again. "Come on, come on, come on," he chanted, hoping desperately that Potter was home; if he wasn't, they were buggered. He kicked the door again, sending jolts up his leg.
"What the hell are you-" James said, yanking the door open. His eyes darted from Regulus's face to Sirius's slumped form. "The fuck happened?" he asked, hurrying forward to take Sirius's weight.
Regulus's arms felt like jelly. Numbly, he followed him into the house and closed the door behind himself.
"Oi, I asked you a question. What happened?"
"There was- I needed help," he said, voice small.
"With what?" James asked, maneuvering Sirius onto the couch.
Regulus didn't want to talk about it, but he knew that he had to answer a few questions before Potter would relax.
Sirius felt like utter shite when he woke up. The nightmares-- or whatever they were called-- called by the potion had been... vivid. Overly realistic like he was reliving every single moment of the worst day of his life.
He'd realised, one day back in Hogwarts, that James wasn't going to ever be interested in him. It had him hard. James had gone on a date, and then he'd been so excited about it that he'd started to tell Sirius every little detail-- just like they did with everything else. Sirius had snapped at him halfway through and told him that he didn't want to hear about that shite; James hadn't understood why he was getting upset and got mad in return. There had been a decent amount of insults thrown back and forth, and Sirius had stormed out. He'd spent half of the night away, and he'd seriously considered never going back. He'd been hurt and angry and so depressed that he felt like he couldn't even pretend to be okay. In his opinion, he'd had worse days, but that was the only one that had been horrible where James was concerned. Everything else, he'd had James around to comfort him afterwards. For that, he'd been all alone. He couldn't exactly go running off to James when James was the problem.
Sirius wasn't suicidal. But he had been that night. Looking back on it, it felt stupid, but reliving it had reminded him of why he'd been thinking about it. It hadn't been stupid that night.
It meant that when he woke up, not only did he have a tender stomach from vomiting and a headache from crying, but he also felt... fragile. He wondered where Regulus had brought him, because he knew as soon as he opened his eyes that he wasn't in hospital.
"Hey," James said softly, off to the side.
Sirius rolled his head to the side to look at him.
He gave a small smile, looking worried. "How do you feel?"
"Been better," Sirius said, swallowing. "Is Regulus okay?"
"He's fine. He's asleep in a guest room."
Sirius nodded, eyes closing again. He felt James brush some hair away from his forehead and press a kiss to the skin there.
"I could've been there if you told me about it," James said, softly reproaching.
"Regulus didn't know who to trust," Sirius mumbled. Sleep was tugging at him again, and he knew they'd have time to talk about it later. For now, it was enough for him to be reminded that James didn't hate him.
The next time he woke up, he knew it was for several hours. The trouble was that he'd rather go back to sleep. He didn't see anyone as he got off the couch and walked to the kitchen for some water. He didn't feel firm enough to stay standing, so he sat at the table to sip gingerly at his drink. He'd need to brush his teeth soon, because this wasn't sustainable.
He got halfway through his glass before James walked into the room. "Feeling any better?" James asked.
"A bit," Sirius said. He winced at how rough his voice sounded. His throat didn't hurt, and he didn't really remember much about last night. Or whenever it was that he'd gone to the cave with Regulus. After losing time first with the potion then with sleeping so much, he didn't know how long it had been. "How long was I sleeping?"
"Couple days," James said with a shrug. "Lily came by to check up on you."
Lily was training to be a medi-witch, so it made sense that she would've been by. What didn't make sense was that Regulus hadn't protested; he wasn't a blood supremacist anymore, but he'd made it clear that he wouldn't be comfortable around Sirius's mates. He hadn't exactly been lucid for it, but he assumed that the only reason he'd gone to James was because he hadn't known what to do with Sirius otherwise. And, given the choice between Sirius possibly dying and talking to someone he'd rather avoid, Regulus would always choose to talk to someone he'd rather avoid.
"Is Regulus still here?" Sirius asked.
"Not right now. He's with Dumbledore, filling him in on what he knows about Voldemort. I told them that they could stay here, but Dumbledore insisted. I figured you wouldn't mind since there's nowhere safer than with Dumbledore. And er, I guess safe is where you want your brother? You're talking again? Or still?"
"Again," Sirius said. "I wouldn't have been able to keep something like that from you even if I wanted to. Did he tell you what me being sick was about?"
"Yeah. Pretty sure he didn't want to, but I was sort of freaking out." He admitted it easily, utterly unashamed of it. He still looked worried, even though Sirius was okay now. "You should've told me what you were doing before you left."
"You were on a date," Sirius said. It was a weak excuse, and he knew it. There was no easy way for him to explain that any time James said he had a date, Sirius left him the fuck alone. He never wanted to do anything that could make James think he was jealous. It had been stupid and he knew it, but he'd figured that James couldn't get too mad at him for not telling him if he got injured-- and if he didn't get hurt at all, then he would've been able to tell James that there had been no reason to worry.
"That's not the point. You should always tell me when you're going to do something stupidly dangerous so that I can be available if you need help. What would you have done if I wasn't home?"
The thing was, Sirius knew when James was deflecting. So instead of answering his question, he said, "You were on a date, weren't you?"
Guilt flashed across his face.
"What, you lie to me now? About dates?" Sirius had thought he did a pretty good job of hiding his crush, but if James was lying to him about going on dates, clearly he hadn't hidden shite. "What the hell?"
James swallowed, averting his eyes for a moment to peer at the floor. He toed a piece of dirt. "I didn't want you to worry about me."
"What the buggering hell were you doing that I would've worried about?" If James said that he was going into Knockturn Alley all by himself in the middle of the night, Sirius was going to kill him.
"Nothing," he said, taking a seat at the table.
Sirius glared at him suspiciously.
"Nothing! I swear. I just sit at home when I tell you I have a date."
"Why the hell would you do that? If you don't want me to visit, you can just say so."
"No- fucking hell, no that's not what it is."
"Then what is it?"
James looked at him for a long moment. There was something haltingly hopeful in his eyes, but it was clear that he was trying to tamp down on it. "You really don't know?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about. Am I supposed to know why you lie to me just to sit at home all by yourself?"
"I didn't want you to figure out that I'm in love with you. I knew it would make things weird. Hell, the only reason I'm fessing up to it now is because Regulus figured it out, and I didn't want him to drop it on you out of nowhere. He thought we were together, you know," James said. "You kept saying my name when you were hallucinating, so he asked me. I guess I didn't answer in a way that wasn't suspicious. He'd make a great interrogator," he added thoughtfully. "He stared at me, and it felt like everything came spilling out."
Sirius blinked. James had said that he loved him like it wasn't even a revelation. "You love me?" he asked hoarsely.
"Well yeah," James said, pairing the statement with a soft, small smile. The sort of smile he did when he looked at Sirius like he was the most wonderful thing in the world-- like he was looking at him right now.
Sirius's throat worked. "I kind of want to kiss you silly, but I'm not really feeling up to standing. Would you erm- help me out and come over here?"
"You- me?"
"Not going to snog anyone else," Sirius said.
James scrambled over to him, nearly knocking over his chair. Only instead of kissing Sirius, he wrapped his arms around him, holding him tight.
"Hey, my lips are down here," Sirius joked.
"Believe me, I know," James muttered, like he'd thought about kissing him a hundred times-- and he had. "I want to wait until you can stand on your own for that though."
"I can stand," Sirius protested.
"For more than two minutes?"
"You're making this harder than it needs to be," Sirius muttered, but he relaxed into James's chest. He'd get a kiss soon enough. And after that, as many kisses as he wanted.