Ok, this is partly following Julie's lead, and partly just because I want to organize my thoughts. Yeah, and because I want to explain some of Sirius's behavior, because
he certainly won't and I don't want everyone thinking my baby is just a jerk for the sake of being a jerk. Because...he is a jerk, but he has his reasons.
Regulus. He is really, really horrid to Regulus. But for once, it's not for the sake of being horrid. It's because
this way, Regulus will answer. He could be polite, he could be nice; and then Regulus- in his mind, at least- would find it easy to ignore him.
And that would hurt like nothing else has hurt him in an uncommonly painful life.
He doesn't want to be
cruel to his brother. He wants to be friends, like they were once upon a time. He wants it to be all limericks and snowball fights and secret notes slid under each other's bedroom doors. He wants that in a way that is physically painful. But it's gone, and he can't have it; Regulus won't let him have it. And so he's taking what he can get, because if he says horrid things to Regulus, at least Regulus reacts. At least Regulus hears his insults.
He walked out of that house. He left his brother behind. There's a large part of him that thinks he should just let it go. Shut up, let Regulus ignore him, ignore his brother himself, allow this last family tie to be fully severed.
But he can't do that. Maybe it's awful, but he can't. Partly, it's guilt; he, the 'strong one,' left his little baby brother behind in a situation he couldn't stomach himself. As he walked out that door, he made a promise. He said, I'll always be your brother, you'll always have me. Part of his desperate need to keep the channels of communication open is that promise; as long as they're talking, as horrible as that talking might be,
he's there. Just like he said he would be.
Part of it's that he's
Sirius. He loves as all-encompassingly as anyone ever has; and Regulus was the first thing in the world he was
allowed to love. He can't give that up. Even if it hurts- and it does, every time they exchange words it leaves him feeling ruined and broken and guilty and so, so alone- he can't give it up.
And, to be fully truthful, part of it is ANGER and HATE. I know that's contradictory, but hell, that's what Sirius is; he's an emotional sinkhole who spent the first eleven years of his life without a single model of normal human emotion or behavior. He's fucked up. He doesn't know how to love, and he doesn't know how to be angry, how to fight, how to forgive; he's had to muddle every single intense and confusing emotion out himself since infancy. He's doing the best he can. But he's really, really fucking angry. Because Regulus hurt him. Regulus said, if you walk out that door, you're not my brother anymore, and he's held to that. It hurts like none other, and Sirius has to lash out at that. And the best revenge? The best revenge is to
refuse to acknowledge it. To act like that familial, brotherly relationship is still there. To put absolutely no stock whatsoever in Regulus's stated desires about the whole matter. To ignore what he says and refuse to let anyone- least of all Regulus himself- forget that he is, in fact, Sirius
Black. That he came from them, that everything he does reflects on them, that they can't get rid of him, not really.
Which is, of course, a double-edged sword; they can't get rid of him, but he can't get rid of them either. His greatest, almost debilitating, fear is that deep down, blood
is destiny and he
is just like them; refusing to let anyone forget that he's the shamed son of Black means that he can't forget it either. He can't exorcise them. They are in him, and there's always the chance that someday, somehow, it will come to light that he belongs with them after all. That the Black in him will do something horrible. That he, to use his own words, doesn't have a soul either.
(Which, incidentally, is part of WHY he ran- the running came just after he told Snape about Remus. He told the most fucking disgusting person in the world his
best friend's deepest secret. How horrible- how inhuman- is that? He was so, so scared that if he stayed, he'd become his mother. That he'd lose any humanity he'd managed to gain. He had to do SOMETHING to atone. To prove that, yes, he's the sort of person who tells his greatest enemy his best friend's secrets, but that's not all he is. To himself more than to anyone else.)
He's so scared and so angry, y'all. All the time. It's always there, roiling right below the surface. All that bravado...god. Is primarily to charm and to fool himself.
I love this wounded little boy in my brain so, so much.
