Regulus told James to wait for him in his dorm. He said to ‘sit on the bed or something’. So James sits on Regulus’ bed as he rummages through the cupboard next to his bed- looking for something fun to do. But all that’s in there is books and school stuff and snacks that James doesn’t like- like nuts! How on earth did James find a boyfriend who likes nuts, and raisins and all that weird shit?
In the bottom drawer- the one you’d only find if you were really looking for it (or really bored with only a bedside table to entertain yourself)- there is something interesting, however. A piece of paper, folded over a couple of times and clearly worn. James plucks it out of the drawer for further inspection. And then, in seeing Regulus’ delightful handwriting, makes the decision to read. He’s read fiction of Regulus’ before and it’s beautiful, but this, this is something different. Until, yes, James knows that it is in fact something different. And it is not fiction.
The paper wears the words:
Have you asked yourself, they say, what you want?
My first thought begins something like: I don’t ask myself anything. But then, is the answering not presupposing a question; like when I say I feel hungry does that not come with the intrinsic need to check- to question- my health status? And then I have my answer, yes, I have asked myself what I want. I want the things I need- the things I need, because all else is unnecessary. Except I know- based on their heavy implicative tone and our history with my unnamed desire- that they’d like something more physiological than a ‘yes’ based on instinctual check-ups and acknowledgement of the answers to them. I know that I am being asked, not as a body, but as a person, a soul- perhaps- or a consciousness. Have I asked myself what I want? I cannot find it within myself to ask it now- as if on command. To submit and answer to another feels like a betrayal of the loyalty I have to myself. The secrecy within myself is one I trust myself with immensely. I do not let myself uncover it- why should I let them? This loyalty is one I have strained to find comfort in, I will not let myself be displayed in my truth now. I have answered, upon external questioning, what I want: when things were put so simply in childhood. And in processing others’ questions, do I not question myself? As they say, ‘What do you want?’, do I not ask myself the very same question as part of the internal answering mechanism? Or do I ask myself what they want me to want? I am shaped, molded by a society- a collection of expectations that hold up the way we interact; and who am I to bring them down? I do not disappoint. But do I know my own truths, even as I shape my image in others’ requirements? Have I asked myself what I want? It troubles me, this question, as I dwell on its signifying of my self-negligence when loyalty to myself is something that I hold in high regard. Is it, then, that I would like to treat myself well- is that what I want? And in asking that question am I asking myself what I want? Am I breaking the loyalty that I am trying to prove? I resolve to ignore the nagging of the question, the emptiness that lingers, the space that I hold that would fit, so fulfilling, an answer. And I do it, but it is not without consequences. Without asking myself what I want, and never having done so, there is a longing inside of me without a name. A clawing desperate thing that I have prayed to a god that I do not believe in, will never take a physical form, or show itself. I cannot find contentment- there is something missing— surely a want. Something verging on a need. But not instinctually, and so I do not know it, cannot name it, do not know how to solve it. I cannot sate a want I cannot identify.
And neither can they. So, I leave them, allow them distance from my constant berating of negligence because surely, they can see the hollow that dwells inside of me. Surely, they can see that there is an emptiness that pushes the cracked edges of each of us apart. Why do they not fill it? How can they not see what I want? Why will they not sate the hunger, fill the gaps, bridge the rift, solve us? I saw that the lacking was not between us, but leaking from me- overflowing- and poisoning them. I realised that my unknown want was now inside of them too. They wished to solve it, know my emptiness’ name. I didn’t have the bravery to tell them I had not recognised it under such tedious technicalities. So, I told them it was nothing. I let them crave, pray and wish to know what it was that plagued me, what the want inside of me could be sated with. I let my unrecognised desires hunger them, as it did me. But they could not name it, for it, they did not know inside of them as I did. They could not name it, though they tried. And eventually, it poisoned them enough that I didn’t like the way they reacted to me. I left them. It should not have been their fault- how were they to know the creature that climbed inside of my mind, the grief that steps in sync with my own footsteps- the grief for something that I know I want, but will never have? How were they to know not to guess at this lack’s name? How were they to bridge the gap that my own desires wedged there? I wanted, and I wanted. And they wouldn’t fill the void. I hated them for it. Perhaps hatred drove a distance between us too. I wanted them to fix it without trying. And when they tried, I felt pathetic, and when they were unsuccessful without attempt, I felt unfulfilled. It was a hunger that was sharpened and would never dull. A desire that bled and would never scab. The only way to stop a problem is at its root. Dull the knife by crushing it. Quel the bleeding by stopping the heart. Kill the want by killing the soul- or the consciousness- that wants it. I won’t know if they’ll recover. Try to fulfil me, as I want, and I push you away, I hurt you, and I kill the thing that started it all. It was not me. It was the unnamed want. Do not ask me why it doesn’t have a name. Do not ask me what I want.
I fear the answer more than death.
Tears fall and replenish in James’ eyes. He knows he shouldn’t have read this. He can see, in the salt-stained drops on the page, how private and vulnerable this note was. It doesn’t feel as if it was written to be read: rather as a confession. James turns the paper gently, with calloused hands, and reads a sentence on the back. A sentence that wells up a joy in James with such strength that it feels like a wave about to break. Tension and happiness rise in his chest as he reads, and rereads the same words.
My want’s name was Regulus.
A scrawling penmanship, unlike the precision practised on the prose’s side. Something rushed and, James hopes, also joyful. Something that need not be perfect, because they were not his last words, they were merely words. The carelessness in his handwriting is unlike all else about Regulus. He is a poised person, objectified by his status and identity. But here, without being perceived, he is himself. And while guilt ebbs away at James for breaking this, he feels so grateful to be privy to such a characterisation of the man he loves.
He gulps, and feels a tear run its course along the column of his throat. He looks to the ceiling now- to all unknown above, to a deity if there is one. He’s unsure exactly what he is looking for; perhaps solidarity in the admiration that threatens to spill from James’ gut. Regulus knows who he is. He was afraid, and yet, at some point between writing that note and writing the scrawl across its back, he asked himself what he wanted.
Also tingles the feeling of relief inside of James. If asked before today, James wouldn’t have guessed that Regulus had ever spent a day not himself- the core version of him, or could have spent a day not here at all. But now, the fact that James can wait just twenty minutes more for his boyfriend’s return, and then he’s there: just like that, alive and brilliant and alive, it soothes a fear that James didn’t know he had. Regulus’ continued presence is like a thumb brushing up and down against the back of James’ hand, and like a fact so imperative that if broken, all laws and magic and life would collapse, and be worth nothing. And in fact, it is not like that- now the thought is in James’ mind- it is that. It is exactly that nothing would hold any importance or worth without Regulus’ continued presence.
It’s a seemingly dramatic notion, he knows, and yet he cannot halt the train of thoughts that crashes down into nothing the moment the mere idea of Regulus not being here stands in the tracks.
James, still crying, folds the paper with fingers so light that he might as well have been using feathers. It is something to be taken care of, a reminder for Regulus of how far he’s come. A reminder of why he is alive, and the strength it has taken to get there.
James gasps in a breath as the door swings open, Regulus there. So there that James could cry. And as he could, he continues to. Regulus is over at his side almost instantaneously, and James is smiling so hard- he now knows why smiles are described as hard, this is unbreakable and will not shift- and his eyes wet themselves with tears as each is lost with increasing speed.
“James, what’s wrong?” The urgency in Regulus’ tone, combined with the softness and caution- as if he were speaking to a scared animal and not his boyfriend- almost frightens James.
“Nothing, nothing is wrong. You’re so important. I love you; I love you; I love you.” And the three words don’t stop repeating in his head, as if they are a mantra; not a reminder but an acknowledgement of the immoveable fact.
“James?” Regulus sounds scared now, more so than before. And something clicks or shifts for James, and he sees- in a moment of clarity that he feels upset to have- that ‘I love you’ while crying means something different to Regulus than it does to James.
“I- I just-”, and he decides upon the truth, despite the consequences he is sure to face, “I read this, and I love you and I'm so glad you’re here.” He sounds hysterical as he passes the letter to Regulus, but he needn’t pass it. It flashes in Regulus’ eyes as the word ‘read’ escapes James’ lips and he reaches to the nightstand: he knows. Regulus isn’t known for being visibly emotive, but James prides himself on how well he can read his boyfriend. He does until this moment.
All walls are up, and the unfeeling in Regulus’ eyes displays more of a statement than if hurt was displayed in them. James does not flinch away, but his avoidance of the act is conscious.
The world seems to splinter around Regulus, his face so cold and practised that James can barely recognise him.
“That wasn’t yours to read.”
“Fuck, I know, I know but-”
“There are no buts. There is nothing except that you read what wasn’t yours to read.”
And Sirius mentioned, as they grew up together, how similar to their mother Regulus becomes when he’s angry. James thought that Regulus had disproved this, but clearly, he had never hurt Regulus to the degree in which he becomes truly his mother’s son. It’s difficult not to villainise him like this, he doesn’t look like the Regulus that James knows. They both know that James would love him like this as he’d love him like he usually is, but it’s a change that frightens him.
Regulus turns his head, in preparation to stand. And James has been hit by Regulus’ mother before. It is more instinct that decision that he moves away when he thinks it’ll happen again. Regulus notices the flinch, and his cold demeanour fractures and then melts, all at once, away.
“You flinched.” He says, his face pain-stricken and hurt. And James wants to plaster over where it bleeds, and stop the pain, but this time he is the one that has hurt him.
“I’m sor-”
“Shit. James, don’t apologise. I just made you flinch. Shit.”
Regulus bites his thumb now, hard enough that James fears indentation, or worse, the breakage of skin. He approaches Regulus’ hand with his- shaking- own, and pulls it from his mouth. Taking his hand in his own, James stops trembling. The soft and hard of Regulus’ hand, known blind to James for a long time, is a comfort.
“You didn’t make me flinch. I flinched.” He squeezes Regulus’ hand, “Don’t let this take away from what I did. I hurt you. I hurt you and your initial response was to shut down, not to hurt me- that's what I assumed from my own experiences: apart from yours. You didn’t make me flinch-”
“I scared you.” And he pulls his hand from James’ grasp.
“I crossed a line, I upset you.”
“They’re not fucking transactions, James!” He yells this.
James feels safer than he ever has before.
“I hate when you get closed off like that- it scared me, yes, but that wasn’t you and you can’t help it! It’s not your fault!”
He hates his logic for sounding as pitiful as it does. But Regulus would never hurt him. His mother did, and now when faced with Regulus’ mother’s eyes as cold as they were when they belonged to her, that’s scary. Not him. Never him.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s my fault or not, you can’t- you can’t be with someone who scares you. I love you too much to let you be with someone you’re afraid of. You deserve better than that.” Regulus’ voice falls and cracks as he ends the sentence; it sounds like acceptance of something James isn’t ready to accept. He is worse, James is worse.
“And you deserve better than someone who fucking snoops around and reads your private letters, but we’re both stuck here somehow!”
“Well, I don’t see any fucking glue!”
And somehow that’s it. Somehow, within the limbo that was this argument, they made their decision. Regulus’ eyes met with James’, and it felt like the splintering and spluttering of their relationship, cracking with its last breath. Now they breathe.
Then there’s the movement of the mattress as James gets up. James has to be the one to leave, it’s Regulus’ room after all. But he drags his feet- like his body instinctually needs to retaliate. His mouth is dry though, empty of reasons to stay.
He is not respectful enough to be in a relationship that requires so much respect. Regulus deserves better. And James knows, as he knows the scrawl of Regulus’ name against the back of a letter, that he will find it. Regulus will find better, and James will watch.