Starlight

So if you’re lonely,

 you know I’m here waiting for you

I’m just a crosshair, 

I’m just a shot away from you

And if you leave here, 

you leave me broken, shattered, I lie

I’m just a crosshair, 

I’m just a shot, then we can die

Take me out - Franz Ferdinand

“Reg, what do you think? Strawberry or chocolate?” 

He and Annie stand in front of the fridge full of ice cream in the supermarket, the coldness radiating from it. 

“Um. Both?”

Anne grins at him. “That’s my boy,” she ruffles his hair and opens the fridge, grabbing the ice cream. Regulus smiles. 

“Alright. I’m going to go find the milk, you get some cereal. Proper cereal. Not that healthy shit.”

Regulus smiles wider and nods, slipping through the aisles. 

It’s the weekend before his fourth week of school, and Annie has decided this means they have to do a ‘movie night’, which Regulus has never even heard of, never mind participated in, which apparently requires bucketloads of ice cream, popcorn and pizza to be executed successfully, according to Annie. 

Regulus invited James, but he and his mum were going to do some gardening together, so Regulus is stuck trying to convince Annie he’s laughing at the movie and not the weird way she laughs (which he totally is). 

She put together a list of everything they have to watch, and after extensive research, Regulus has found they’re all either horror movies from the 80s or gay romance movies. 

Regulus finds the aisle with the cereal and lets his gaze wander over it. The lights are much brighter in this part of the supermarket and Regulus finds himself blinking rapidly, trying to shut out the light while still reading the labels on the cereal boxes. 

He grabs the first one with chocolate he can find, but when he turns to find Annie, he crashes into a chest. 

A very familiar chest. 

“Do you mind-”

Regulus blinks. Once. Twice. Thrice-

“Ray,” Sirius breathes out and Regulus flinches. 

The actions makes Sirius’ eyes harden, all surprise gone and replaced with anger and betrayal.

“Figured I’d see you around at some point. You really just had to come to the same town as me, didn’t you, you fucking brat?”

“I didn’t-” Regulus lets his mouth fall shut when he realises he’s not making a sound anyway. 

“Oh, don’t act so fucking daft, Raine. Do you really expect me to believe your stupid little act? Do you really think I ever believed it? I’ve spent my entire life protecting you, but every time I need help you act all hopeless. You’re a fucking coward, and you’re pathetic. And stay the fuck away from me at school, got it? I don’t want to see your stupid face ever again.” 

Regulus’ chest shudders, cracks, breaks and he shakes his head, he tries to do something, to yell or scream or cry,but Sirius is already walking away, anger and pain and betrayal laced in his eyes that used to be so soft. 

The lights feel as if they brighten the further he walks away, and Regulus’ breath is rigid, his tears streaming down his cheeks. 

He forces himself to move, for his feet to carry him until he hears his name. 

Annie’s hands are holding his face, and Regulus flinches, unable to bring himself to look at her. 

I just make it worse. 

His voice rasps as he speaks, “Can I go to James’ house?”

Annie looks so fucking worried as she nods, confused and that’s all Regulus needs before he’s stumbling down the streets of the town. 

James’ house is yellow.

He knocks, but it’s so weak due to the way Regulus’ body trembles, that he just rings the doorbell instead. 

James is wearing ridiculous gardening boots and those waterproof trousers, a sun hat on his head. He barely has a second to take Regulus in before he throws himself at him, burying his face in his neck. 

James stands there, still, until he wraps his arms around Regulus tightly, the tension seeping from Regulus’ body so quickly his legs actually give out. 

James catches him, holding him up. He doesn’t say a word as he slips his arm under Regulus’ knees and picks him up, and Regulus can’t do anything but sob and squeeze his eyes shut. 

He can feel it, the odd sensation that makes him shake and crumble, every part of his body feeling too much. 

He digs his nails into James’ shirt, the smell of James’ shampoo somehow the one thing he can concentrate on. He breathes it in, over and over and over and over until the feeling passes and he’s laid down onto a soft bed. 

He doesn’t dare open his eyes, instead just focuses on the fingers brushing through his hair. 

Slowly, his breaths calm and Regulus blinks his eyes open. 

James is still running his hand through his hair, talking softly but Regulus can barely hear him.

“I didn’t mean to,” Regulus whispers, tears stinging in his eyes again. 

James kisses his hair, his tears dripping onto Regulus' forehead.  

Regulus chokes on his own tears and says it again, and again, and again, until James has no choice but to crawl into the bed with him and rock them back and forth while Regulus cries. 

He feels cold when he finally calms down. Like there’s something missing. Regulus tries to shake the feeling away, but it stays, deep in his bones. 

“Reg?”

He opens his eyes and meets James’ gaze. He looks sad. 

“M’sorry”

“No- Reg, it’s okay, you just said you didn’t mean to.”

“You don’t even know what I’m talking about”

“Doesn’t matter. If you say you didn’t mean to, then whatever you did, isn’t your fault.”

“But I still-”

“No. It’s not your fault, Reg.”

Regulus closes his eyes, wishing he could just believe that himself. But how can he? He hurt his big brother. It’s his fault. 

At some point, Regulus really doesn’t know if it’s been five minutes or two days, he hears Annie and James’ mum talking downstairs. He’s been lying in James’ arms for a while now, James softly snoring after falling asleep, and Regulus stares at his face as he strains to hear what Annie and Effie are saying. 

He thinks back to the supermarket, the way Sirius’ yelling had made heads turn. The way his eyes had hardened so much. 

Regulus squeezes his own eyes shut and shoves his nose into James’ chest, letting himself rise and fall with James’ breaths. 

There’s a knock on the door, and Regulus lifts his head to see Annie walking in with a bowl of crisps. 

“Hey, bug,” She smiles and walks into the room quietly, setting the bowl on James’ nightstand. 

“Hi,” Regulus mumbles. 

“Wanna tell me what happened?”

“...no”

She sighs, but not in a bad way. “Okay. Just- if you ever do, you can. Anything. I will literally bury a body for you, Regulus.”

Despite himself, he smiles a little. “Thanks”

Annie ruffles his hair and shakes her head at James, whose mouth is wide open as he snores. 

“You two are really close, huh?”

Regulus lays his head back down on James’ chest, nodding. “He’s warm”

Annie grins, “That’s good. Hey, Reg, what do you say we go visit Effie at work next weekend?”

“Um… what does she do?”

“She’s a doctor”

“Oh. Why…?”

“I was just thinking- you know, you’ve never actually gone to a proper doctor before, have you?”

“...no”

“Right. So I just thought it’d be a good idea, just in case.”

“Alright”

“Okay,” she smiles one last time, though it looks a bit off, before leaving the room again. 

Regulus, slightly confused, wraps his arm around James’ torso and curls up against him, closing his eyes. 

***

James never does ask why Regulus showed up crying, instead he brushes his fingers through his curls as they watch movie after movie, eating crisps and tangling their feet together. Regulus manages to shove every other thought away, as they move on from the movies and fill out a puzzle book Effie gave them. Regulus practically devours it, and James has to laugh at how fast Regulus solves them, leaving James no time to even read the instructions on the page before Regulus is flipping to the next. 

He loves doing stuff like this. Finding little things in stuff that no matter how hard he tries to explain, no one understands their connection. Sometimes it doesn’t make that much sense, but Regulus still finds the pieces slot together perfectly. 

He loves the big picture in puzzles. How everything just slots together in ways you would have never predicted when you started. 

“Regulus! Will you slow down!? I wanna do some too!”

“Tough,” Regulus mutters, drawing lines in the book to connect two figures with the same silhouette. 

James lunges for the book, snatching it from Regulus’ hold and Regulus protests, fighting for it until he’s sitting on top of James, laughing and whacking him with the book in the chest repeatedly. James sits up abruptly, grabbing Regulus’ wrists, panting from laughing so much. Regulus feels his heart beat faster as he realises he can feel James’ breath on his face and how close he is. Regulus leans forward, bumping his nose against James’, which makes him smile before James grabs Regulus by the waist and pulls him in for a hug. 

“You know what, Reg?”

“What?”

“I’ve decided that your mine now”

“Am I?”

“Mhm. You’re going to have to spend the rest of your life with me.”

“Alright”

He feels James grin into his hair, kissing his head before pulling back. 

“You’re so- perfect”

Heat rushes up Regulus’ cheeks and he swallows. “I don’t think so”

“You are,” James brushes a curl behind his ear. 

“No one else who knows me would say that”

“You’ve said that before.”

“So? People quote other people all the time, why can’t I quote myself?”

James presses a soft kiss against Regulus’ forehead, lingering for far longer than necessary. 

“I mean it, Reg, you can’t leave me now. I won’t make it.”

“I don’t want to leave you”

“Then don’t”

“I won’t”

“Good”

He finally pulls away and Regulus’ heart lurches when he sees tears forming in James’ eyes. 

It’s funny how one silly thing can mean so much more to someone than you ever thought it would. 

Regulus, not knowing how else to stop James from starting to cry, holds up his pinky. 

“I promise,” he whispers, but his attempts become futile when James immediately lets out a sob, pulling Regulus into his chest. 

“Reg,” he whimpers helplessly, burying his face in Regulus’ hair. 

Regulus lets out a soft ‘oof’, his hands moving up to stroke through James’ hair. 

They stay like that until Annie says they have to go home because of the ice cream that’s going to start melting soon, but now that their movie night has been delayed James can come and if Annie sees the way Regulus reaches for James’ hand on the way back, she doesn’t show it. 

They watch Gremlins first, then Red, White and Royal Blue, then Little Shop of Horrors, then Love, Simon, then Ghostbusters, then The Half Of It, then Nightmare on Elm street, and by then it’s like 5 am so Annie decides they need to sleep if they want to function during the next week. 

James wakes Regulus up at least six times because he’s scared and eventually Regulus makes him sleep in his bed because if he’s woken up one more time he’ll bite James. But when Regulus wakes up a couple hours later, he finds James hasn’t slept at all because, ‘what if I dream of Freddy Krueger and then he kills me, Reg? What then!?’. 

Because of his nap yesterday, James isn’t too tired and he and Regulus go to the playground and sit on the slide, watching toddlers trip and trying not to laugh. 

Regulus is leaning his head on James’ shoulder, James’ arm around him when James speaks up. 

“Are your parents dead?”

Regulus stills.

“No”

James looks at him, Regulus can tell, even if he’s not looking back. 

“Okay,” James whispers, his hold on Regulus tightening, pulling him closer. Regulus tries to memorise the feeling, tries to print it on his soul, mark it in his blood. 

“They’re in jail,” he whispers, because some small part of him wants James to know, and it’s that same small part that tells him it’s not his fault, and that the way he is isn’t normal but it’s not bad. It’s usually the part of himself he doesn’t listen to, the part he shoves deep down because he doesn’t feel he deserves it being right. 

“Good,” James says, with no hesitation, decisive and sure. 

Regulus smiles as the tears run down his cheeks.