chapter xvii
Regulus didn’t remember falling asleep, but he obviously did.
Obvious in that he woke up next to another human being.
He had rather thought that he would never have to deal with the experience, with sleeping in the same bed as someone else. Marriages were not for love, but for status and heirs, so at least Regulus would never have to pretend to love a man. They would have separate bedrooms, separate lives. This was the only thing that kept Regulus from taking a sharp stick to his skull every time he thought about his future.
And yet.
Here he was, waking up, seeming to be held in someone’s arms. It was weirdly warm.
He didn’t like it.
He wanted out.
The person was holding him from behind, so he couldn’t see them. He didn’t know.
He wanted out immediately.
The person’s arms were strong, much stronger than Regulus’s own.
Out.
Out.
He tried pushing the arms away, but in his panic, pushed too hard. So the person woke up.
Regulus didn’t want that. A wakeful assailant was much more dangerous than a sleeping one.
He prepared himself. He prepared himself for an attack, for the arms to get tighter. Tight enough to suffocate him.
He didn’t prepare for them to be pulled back so quickly that he, in his continued strain, rolled onto the floor.
But he was free. He was out. His hip bone hurt from where it hit the floor and he was sure there would be bruising, but he was free. If he could just. Get. Away.
The person with the arms was looking at him, rubbing their eyes. Regulus couldn’t focus on the face, though. He had to focus on finding an exit.
But then the voice came. The voice Regulus knew, the one he heard much more often than was rational or possible.
Sirius.
Sirius was there.
Despite himself, Regulus calmed slightly at the revelation. Sirius was safe. Nothing too terrible could happen. It never did until Sirius left.
Regulus was able, with this newfound calmness, to focus on the face of his would-be captor. The eyes that looked far too awake for the situation, the eyebrows that wrinkled as if they were fighting. The mouth that moved in time with Sirius’s voice.
“It’s okay, Reggie. It’s just me. Just Sirius.”
Sirius.
“You’re safe, you’re just here with me. You were screaming in your sleep, I used to do this when we were younger.”
It was Sirius. It was Sirius.
He knew Sirius. It was okay. It would be okay.
There was silence for a second, and it seemed to concern Sirius. His face fell into a frown. After everything, Regulus didn’t want to upset his brother.
So he broke the silence.
“Guess I just didn’t wake up as easily when we were younger.”
Sirius’s face relaxed somewhat, morphing into the exact same half-bitter fake smile Regulus was prone to. Proof that they were siblings.
“No, I just sleep heavier. You will too, after you’re away for long enough.”
Away?
Sirius wanted him away.
He supposed he should have known, should have expected the reaction. He had expected the reaction. Nobody in their right mind wanted Regulus around for long. Sirius must really have escaped the Black family madness.
It was only a matter of time, Regulus knew that. Only a matter of time before Sirius was gone again, realizing how much easierhis life was without a screw-up little brother messing with it. It was only a matter of time, and Regulus had hastened it.
He couldn’t even blame Sirius, though he wanted to. He couldn’t expect anyone to put up with him when he was - how he was. Scared and weak and selfish. Like he had been since the party.
The party. That stupid goddamned party. Regulus should have known, then, that the end of his new, tentative brotherly relationship was coming. Sirius had said as much. Regulus couldn’t eat, couldn’t drink, couldn’t function how he was supposed to. He was no good for his brother. And then, he went into the spiral and Sirius had to save him yet again. Because Regulus was just that pathetic.
He would leave, then, walk back to his dorm. At least then he could keep a shred of his dignity.
Sirius seemed half-asleep again, so Regulus slipped out of the room without being noticed. For all of his many flaws, Regulus had at least always been good at staying silent and unseen.
He couldn’t remember which door he came in through. There were four doors in the apartment, and he knew one went to the room he had just left. But there were three more. They were identical.
One of them had to be the exit. He had to get to it.
Another thing Regulus had always been good at was escape. He knew how to get out of situations instinctually, and he had had enough practice to know how to escape places. He just had to focus.
Of the three options, one had light escaping from the cracks between the frame and the door itself. The one with light was obviously the wrong choice, likely a bathroom Sirius had used forgotten to switch the light off in. He had the tendency. He was always careless. So, so careless.
The other two doors looked exactly the same, and Regulus had to focus harder, had to get out.
There was a sound coming from one of the doors, a subdued shuffling. The other was silent. And so Regulus had to weigh his options. The silence could indicate an empty hallway or a room with someone sleeping. The noise could indicate a room where Sirius’s roommate was awake or a hallway where kids were finally getting back, trying not to wake their neighbors.
With Regulus’s limited knowledge of college students and James, the latter seemed much more likely. Students often seemed to engage in parties that bled in to the early morning, and James didn’t seem the type to wake early. It was barely sunrise, so if James had awoken, he’d have turned on his light to see better.
Regulus opened the door as silently as he could, another thing he had more than enough pratice with. He stared at the doorknob as he eased the door back into its frame, willing it not to squeak or click or otherwise give him away.
And then he turned. He got ready to leave.
And he came face-to-face with James, who apparently was an early riser.
The confusion on James’s face was obvious, and would likely have been funny under different circumstances.
But the circumstances weren’t different.
“Reg?” James’s voice was alert, less confused than his eyes.
Regulus hadn’t prepared for that. He had done his due diligence to choose the right door, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t fair.
“...sorry. I didn’t know.”
James’s eyes squinted slightly, and he looked closer at Regulus, as if he were trying to figure him out. “Didn’t kn- oh!” His face fell into an easy grin, one he seemed to wear like a favorite locket, like it was something he didn’t have to think about, like he was somehow wrong without it. “Pads’ room is next door over.” He was stepping around Regulus, reaching for the doorknob. Trying to get him to go back.
Regulus couldn’t. He wouldn’t go back. He wouldn’t.
He put his hand over the doorknob one second, but flinched away the next. Had he really just tried to trap James in his own room? He couldn’t do that either. Once he was in Sirius’s room he could sneak away again, this time leaving through the correct door. It would be fine.
Except James was looking at him again, no longer reaching for the door. His eyes were wide, scared. Regulus had scared him by trying to trap him. It was unfair.
“Reg? I wasn’t- I wasn’t going to hurt you. I’m not angry, you just made a mistake. It’s not a big deal.”
He spoke these words like lyrics to a song he’d memorized but hadn’t sung in years. Like he knew them, but hadn’t expected to use them. Like he’d had practice.
With Sirius. James thought Regulus was scared of him. As much as Regulus didn’t want to be there, as much as he was scared, he couldn’t let James think that. It wouldn’t be fair.
“No, I- know. I know. I just…” He gestured jerkily at the door behind him as if that explained it. He wished it would. “I should go. Don’t want to bother anym-”
James’s face fell as he interrupted. “No. No, you can’t. You can’t go. Please don’t. Stay. He needs you here, needs to know you’re safe. It’s been tearing him up.”
There was something behind James’s voice, something panicked and desperate. Something that shouldn’t have been there, didn’t even belong in the same room as James.
“He doesn’t want me here,” Regulus answered slowly, trying to keep his voice even enough to calm James. “He’ll be okay that I’ve gone, already knows I’m up and breathing and everything.”
James shook his head quickly. “Stay. You need to stay.” His eyes didn’t lose their franticness, and Regulus was tired. He was so tired. So he knew he would regret it in the morning, when he had to face Sirius again, see the inevitable disappointment and disgust anew. But he was so tired, he didn’t want to fight. Not James. Not himself.
So he walked mechanically over to a chair by James’s bed, he curled up in it, and he stayed.