Lunar Connections

xvi.

"Fuck..." I muttered seeing Regulus take place down beside me.

"How did you know I was here?" I asked him, looking out to the sky rather than facing him. He seemed to be doing the same.

"I didn't." He responded softly. His voice was always so calming to hear. He always spoke so elegantly even if he had his voice raised.

"I come here some nights, to just... breathe." He confessed, and I took his words to be truthful. I did the same.

"I didn't realise your life was that difficult." I commented instead, and he rolled his eyes at me to which I smirked.

"You wouldn't know." He told me, and I could sense resentment in his tone. There was more to him than I knew. I realised that.

"You're free to share." I responded, looking back out to the sky. I didn't want him to feel pressured. Merlin, why did I care? He didn't even like me.

"We're not friends." He said repeating my words from today, and I rolled my eyes.

"I didn't meant that." I told him truthfully, and I could feel him staring at me intensely. He hadn't expected my words.

"Well, I did." He replied coldly, and I could almost see the smirk from the corner of my eye.

I let out a groan, banging my head against the the railing.

"Do you ever feel like everyone you know is pressuring you into becoming someone you don't want to?" He asked me. I frowned, opening my mouth to respond when he cut me off.

"Do you ever question with every aching moment why you're never enough for your parents?" My mouth shut as I realised what he's doing.

"Do you compare yourself to everyone in your life, because even if you're at the top, you know there's someone better?"

I looked down at my lap.

"Do you ever wish, things could've gone differently?"

"Or that your brother didn't leave you alone with your abusive parents?"

My heart beat a little faster at the hurt in his voice.

"We had our roles, and I played mine to perfection, but Sirius..." he trailed off. "He never did a thing my parents asked him. He didn't pretend to love them like I did." This felt too personal for me to hear, and so I shook my head, refusing to hear anymore.

"Stop." I muttered.

He ignored me.

"But I did love him. I risked everything to protect him from my parents." He sort of scoffed to himself, and I turned to him, noticing that he held some type of letter in his hand.

"If I wasn't their perfect son, maybe they wouldn't have been so kind to him." It was my turn to scoff.

"Kind?" My heart was going crazy. "I've seen the scars. How is that kind?"

Regulus chuckled dryly, lifting up his sleeve to show me scars, similar to the ones Sirius had.

"These are nothing, compared to what they would've done to us, hadn't I convinced them of my potential to serve him." This was getting into dangerous territory, but I wanted to hear more. I needed to.

"Do you want to serve him?" I asked, almost scared of my own voice. Everything was loud. My whisper felt like a shout, and Regulus' confession felt like a blade to the heart.

"I want to be free." Regulus said, turning his body to face me and I noticed him put the letter in his pocket. "I want what my brother has." He placed his hand on mine.