zeppazariel

The more they leave the past where it is, the easier it gets to forgive the children they no longer are, and move on.

Here is a good place to be, Regulus feels. A comfortable place. He has his best friend, his boyfriend, and his brother.

You may mourn what he never was; you may be grateful that he's gone. No one can tell you how you're meant to feel in circumstances such as this, and there's no wrong way to feel about it at all.

"I want to ask you what's wrong with that, if it is the case? What's so wrong with leaning on your brother through a rough time? Why does it bother you?"

"Because I—I need him."

"It feels like I'm—like I'm making him do it again. Like it's just another form of him taking hits for me.

"I have never been more indifferent about anything in my life," Sirius informs him bluntly, and Regulus blinks.

I wouldn't because he doesn't matter to me, Reggie. At all. But, if you need me there, then I'm there. Simple as."

You have to trust that he would tell you if there was ever a reason he couldn't, and you have to take the steps to ask, just as he has to take the steps to accept that if he can't do something for you, it doesn't mean he's failing at being a brother.

Because Sirius is braver, stronger, bolder—a lot of different things Regulus can't be right now, maybe never—it's him that opens the door and leads them in.