Chapter Text
i: winter’s upon us (won’t you stay?)
Christmas Eve
“It’s fine , Sirius.”
“It isn’t, really.”
Regulus rolls his eyes, though his brother can’t see him through the phone that’s pressed between his shoulder and ear. He’s sat atop his kitchen counter like a particularly disgruntled cat, the cold of the tile seeping through the thin flannel of his pajama pants. He casts his gaze listlessly out of his dining room window, dead branches and pristine white snow as far as he can see. A book that he’s half-heartedly skimming rests in his lap. “You can’t control the weather. Your flight got canceled, it is what it is.”
“But I promised you—” Sirius insists, sounding horrendously guilty. Regulus can practically picture him pacing in front of the rows of uncomfortable airport gate chairs, his free hand’s fingers wrapped up in the ends of his hair.
Regulus tsks, trying his best to transform the anxiety threatening to bleed through his tone into impatience. “It’s fine, honestly. You aren’t obligated to spend every minute of every day with me.”
“But… it’s Christmas ,” his brother stresses, and, well. He has a point with that one, actually.
Christmas had never been a great time for either of them. Under their parents, for one, it was all about appearances and alliances. Even the slightest wrong move was catastrophic. And then, when they were eleven and twelve, they’d been taken to a group home, and there wasn’t much to celebrate. Staff passed out donated gifts: clothing, toys, the like. Stories were read, watery hot chocolate distributed.
But there was visitation hours. That was what all of the kids were most excited about. Seeing family, no matter how fragmented and guilty the young mothers and fathers and older siblings looked when they huddled together with the child they couldn’t care for. Sirius and Regulus spent every Christmas in the group home torn between hoping that their parents would never come through for visitation and hoping they would—just so that they had someone out there, wanting, waiting.
For better or for worse, they never did.
When Sirius had been placed with a family for the first time, it had been just after Thanksgiving when they were thirteen and fourteen. The only reason they’d stayed in the group home for so long in the first place was because the two of them—especially Sirius—had fought tooth and nail to stay together. All of the horror stories of the system separating siblings were looming over them like stormclouds on the horizon. Sirius swore on his life that he’d always come back for Regulus.
Family is you and me, Reggie, his brother had promised, and that’s what Christmas is about, anyway. I’m not gonna spend it without you ever.
“No shit? Knew I was forgetting something,” Regulus quips now, slipping off of the countertop and moving through his tiny kitchen to put a kettle on. “It’ll be fine, alright? Go spend the rest of Hanukkah with Remus and his family. I’m just gonna put on a film or something, same as every year. Only this year, you won’t be here pestering me to feel the holiday magic.”
Sirius huffs, indignant in his ear, his relief palpable even as he threatens, “Oh, I’m gonna make you feel the magic, Reggie.”
Regulus laughs. “I’d love to see you try.”
James and Sirius have a very simple relationship, when you get right down to the root of it. If one of them jumps off of a bridge, the other is right on his heels. It’s a type of loyalty that’s gotten them into trouble more times than he can count, but it also brought them together in the very beginning.
Sirius had been a disaster in the foster family he was with when James had met him, seventeen years old and with the demeanor of a stray dog lashing out. It was the first time that Sirius had been back with a wealthy family since he’d lived with his birth parents, and he did not handle it well. The bright side was that aforementioned rich foster parents had enrolled him in James’ all-too-posh school. Call it fate, destiny, whatever , they’d collided. Suffice to say, when Sirius called, James dropped everything.
“I have a situation,” Sirius says, without preamble. James can hear the chatter and commotion of a crowded airport in the tinny background. “And I need your help.”
James says, “Anything.”
He really means it, is the thing. For a long time, there had been nothing he could do to help a younger Sirius as he moved from bad house to worse house. And then, even after Sirius aged out and came to live with the Potters, James was helpless to do anything but watch as Sirius searched for his little brother—lost somewhere in the wreck of a system that had ripped them apart. So now, honestly, any little thing he could do…
“My flight’s canceled,” Sirius explains, frustrated. “The snowstorm does not exactly want to cooperate with my noble mission to get back to my loved ones—minus Remus—and I can’t get out of here until after Christmas.”
James winces. “Shit. What, you need me to check your mail? Water the plants?”
“I need you to babysit my brother.”
He pauses delicately. “Your… twenty-one year old brother?”
“Yes, yes,” his friend hurries, dismissive, “look, you know how he is about Christmas. We usually—I mean, there’s a lot of shit that we usually do, but I promised when we got taken from our parents that he’d never have to deal with the holidays without me, and I have managed to keep that fucking promise up until now. Even if it meant running away from like, twelve houses. So I need you to… you know.”
The thing is, James would do anything for Sirius. Truly. It’s just…
Regulus really, really, doesn’t seem to like him very much.
He gets it, tries not to let it get to him, but James is a likable guy. It’s probably not a great thing that he’s really proud of that fact—he’s got a lot of friends, a lot of people who love him. When he’d met Regulus for the first time, he’d gone perhaps a bit overboard with the friendliness.
This is the most important person in Sirius’ life, his brain had told him, you gotta fucking charm him .
It probably hadn’t helped that in their first conversation, James had mentioned his degree in social work. Regulus had been prickly at first and then, as time went on, he simply got weird . A little distant, a little awkward, and so full of quiet snark that it was hard to come to any conclusion other than: oh, this guy fucking hates me. And it sucked, because James really did like being around Regulus. He was funny, and strange, and smart as a whip. He also notoriously despised the holiday season—he and Sirius always vanished from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day.
“Okay,” James replies, slowly. “What does that entail, exactly?”
Sirius sighs. “I know you’re all gung-ho about Christmas, Jamie, and I love that about you, but Regulus really isn’t. So, while I do give you creative freedom to attempt to un-Scrooge him like some the ghost of Christmas whatever, if he really doesn’t want it—”
“Of course,” he promises. “What do you guys normally do?”
He has the foresight to grab a piece of paper and a pen just before Sirius starts listing, “Make sure he takes his meds, morning and night. He’s usually really good with them, but winter sort of kicks his ass, so. Oh, and he’d rather die than admit it, but he fucking loves that acapella Christmas shit, what are they called?”
In the distance on Sirius’ side, Remus’ voice chimes in. “Pentatonix?”
“Yeah, them!” Sirius says, snapping his fingers. “You should put them on. And if he isn’t feeling too bah-humbug about it, watch It’s A Wonderful Life . It’s his favorite.”
James snorts quietly, looking up from his notes. “Is it really?”
“Before, uh,” his friend explains, lowering his voice to a murmur, “ before , we used to sneak out of our parents’ holiday gatherings and watch it together from our neighbor’s sitting room window. They watched it every year, so we did, too. We didn’t get to eat dinner half the time, because we’d sneak out as soon as they started drinking, but we always thought it was worth it. For whatever reason.”
Sometimes, Sirius and Regulus will tell the most horrifically sad anecdote with the most flippant tone in the world—like it’s no big deal, like the small sad things don’t matter in comparison to the big sad things—and it makes James ache every time. “Okay. Prozac, acapella group, black and white movie. Anything else?”
“Creative freedom,” Sirius says, back at his regular volume. James can hear the lingering frustration in his tone, but it’s picked up since the call started. “You got this?”
“Oh, yeah,” James confirms, with way too much confidence. “Yeah, I got this. Operation Un-Grinch is a go. You going to be okay?”
Sirius hums, “Yeah, Remus is gonna bring me back to his family’s. Thank you for—for taking care of Regulus.”
“Anytime,” he replies earnestly. “Besides, Regulus really isn’t any match to my boundless Christmas spirit. I’ll make a believer out of him yet.”
Regulus is still staring out of the window, a mug of quickly-cooling tea clasped between his hands and a little bottle of antidepressants sitting on the counter across from him—which, happy fucking Christmas—when the doorbell starts ringing. He considers ignoring it, but the ringing continues for at least three straight minutes. He groans and shoves himself up, shuffling to the door and wrenching it open.
“I am here,” James fucking Potter announces grandly, snow tumbling from his jacket in wet clumps to melt on Regulus’ carpet, “to show you the true meaning of Christmas.”
Regulus shuts the door in his face.